


If we meet sometime in the after years, my darling, I trust I will find your love still mine.

by lucidlou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Concerts, Confessions, Flashbacks, Grease References, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Music, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slurs, Teenagers, i suck at tagging i'm sorry, this shouldn't be as stressful as it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidlou/pseuds/lucidlou
Summary: 1970s AU.The boy at the dinner table isn’t as much of a stranger as Louis thought, and somewhere between the diners, concerts, and the way the moonlight falls just right, the summer is enough time for realizing just that.





	If we meet sometime in the after years, my darling, I trust I will find your love still mine.

**Author's Note:**

> Any similarities between this and other works like it (which are all most likely better than mine) are pure coincidence.
> 
> This is the first story I've ever completed in full and posted anywhere on the internet, so please don't be too rough on me (I am merely a small child).
> 
> I'm aware that some things do not follow a timeline, like how In-Dash CD Players weren't invented until 1985. I wanted to add these things, yet keep the story in the 1970s, because I wanted out to carry out scenes that use them how I visualized them, and sometimes the technicalities in when they were invented/popularized clashed with my plans. But hopefully that doesn't make you stray away from reading my story.
> 
> If homophobic slurs- or homophobia in general- make you uncomfortable, this story is not for you. The seventies were harsh times if you were a part of the LGBTQ+ community, and I was only trying to portray that to the best of my abilities.
> 
> There are numerous songs mentioned/sung throughout the story, and it would probably be helpful to visualize scenes if you were to listen to them while reading, but it isn't necessary. They're all bops in my personal opinion. They range from The Rolling Stones, rock legends, to Haydn Quartet, a close harmony quartet.
> 
> Please enjoy :).

March, 1970

Louis falls back onto the grass that prickles his neck, breathing heavily. The moon bathes the grass around him in a pale white, his shadow elongated under its light.

Harry stretches out beside him, not quite as tuckered out from biking as Louis. They lay in a comfortable silence only accompanied by the heavy rise and falls of Louis’ chest.

“We’re learning the moon phases in science,” Louis says, pointing at the little gray circle in the sky, “That’s a full moon, since it’s a perfect circle.”

Harry nods beside him. He wouldn’t understand. He’s in year five and they’re probably still learning how to multiply on their fingers.

“It’s a waning gibbous, actually.” Harry corrects. Oh. Whatever.

“Of course you’d know that, smarty pants,” Louis laughs and rolls his eyes.

Harry sits up, laying back on his arms. Louis looks to his right and stares at the side of his face. He kind of looks like a doll in this light, pale skin and all. 

Louis has always been kind of jealous of his skin, but anticipates the day he sees that first flaw arise on Harry’s face, knowing he’ll frolic in the thought of something finally being ‘wrong’ with the boy’s pristine looks. Not that Harry pokes fun at his faults, though. He just likes to tease Harry since he can take it, and the more reasons he’s given to do so, the merrier.

Harry looks at him, and smiles when he finds Louis staring at him. Louis diverts his eyes elsewhere and sits up too. He points at the town below them, the hill they’re sitting on overlooking it. The city lights flicker, and Louis thinks he can see the theater from here. He makes a mental note to ask his mum if he can go tomorrow and take Harry to watch The Aristocrats, storing the thought away for later. They’ll really be sneaking into Count Dracula, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“The town looks pretty from here.”

Harry’s still looking at him, he realizes. His mind slows to process that Harry responds with, “You’re prettier.”

He pretends he didn’t hear him and clears the breath caught in his throat.

Harry lays back down on the grass, and they don’t say anything. Louis wants to clear the air of its awkward silence, that may very well be one-sided, since Harry looks content and indifferent as he stares down at the town skyline, as if he didn’t just call another boy pretty. So he voices the first thing that comes to his head.

“You know Eleanor, right?”

Louis tilts his head to watch for his reaction and Harry nods. He looks down and rolls a blade of grass between his thumb and forefinger.

“Well,” He starts, feeling Harry’s eyes on him, “I was thinking of asking her out.” He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth.

Harry frowns, “Why? Girls are stupid.”

Louis sighs, “You don’t get it. Girls aren’t stupid. Boys are supposed to start dating girls when we get older. Plus, Perrie told me Eleanor has a crush on me.”

Harry looks away from him, and stares up at the sky with pursed lips, “Well I don’t want to date girls. Ever.”

Louis looks at the stubborn boy, on the edge of annoyed. “Then who will you marry? You have to get married, you know. And then start a family.”

Harry’s face cracks into a toothy grin, “Maybe I’ll marry you.”

Louis’ head shoots back, absolutely muddled, “What are you talking about?” He stands up from the grass, wiping away pieces of grass that clung to his jeans.

Harry stands up with him, and even though Louis’ older, Harry still towers over him. He's never found it fair. 

“Stop being weird, Styles,” Louis says, breathing even heavier now than he was before after they finished biking up the hill. For every step Louis takes back, Harry takes one forward, closing the gap of space between them, fast. 

Soon enough, Louis’ moving in a jog backwards, eyes still focused on Harry, who’s following after him with a dopey grin on his stupid face. Louis wants to laugh. This is ridiculous. 

Harry’s legs and all their long unfairness carry him quickly, even if he’s just walking and Louis’ practically running. Their faces are mere inches apart. 

Louis scowls, feeling something weird in his stomach, “Get away from-”

A breath is punched out of his chest when he trips on a rock and his legs are broken of their steady pace. Harry trips on Louis’ shoe, and they both go tumbling to the ground, all of Harry’s weight pushed down on him.

Harry doesn’t get off of him straight away, and instead puts his hands on the ground beside Louis’ shoulders and pushes up so he’s no longer laying on Louis, but their faces are still just as close.

Louis can feel soft breaths pushed against his lips as Harry’s eyes flicker down to them. He sends away the bad thoughts, just for a second, and focuses on how close Harry is. 

They’ve been this close before when they’ve play wrestled after Louis loses checkers yet again and refuses to acknowledge Harry as the ‘reigning champion’, whispered in quiet libraries under irritated gazes, and shared ghost stories under a blanket with nothing but a flashlight, each other, and the patter of rain against the roof. But, this time, it feels different. 

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” Harry asks after a beat, holding himself still.

Louis shakes his head, slow, still staring. The right side of Harry’s face is washed in milky white from the moon, the other half dark, shadows dancing along his face from the pine trees overhead that sway in the breeze, like heaven and hell.

Louis is sure Harry can hear his heartbeat. He wishes it would shut up so he could hear Harry’s skittish breathing and know he isn’t alone in his high-strung nerves.

“I can change that,” Harry’s voice is softer than ever, as though he were hiding his words from something, something they can't see. He lowers his face, arms bending at the elbow, doing a push-up over Louis’ body. Louis meets him half way and their lips brush, cool, soft, and trembling. Neither of them have kissed anyone before besides their mum’s, (who Louis doesn’t exactly want to think about right now) so they just push their lips together. It’s awkward and Louis’ sure he’ll look back on this moment and shudder when he thinks about it, but for right now, it’s just them. It’s just them, the moon, the trees, the shadows, the grass, and the serenity of their hill. Louis wants to live in this moment forever.

But as all things good do, it comes to an end, the end being in the form of faint peddling in the distance. Louis places his hands on Harry’s chest and pushes him off, falling somewhere on the ground to his left, a pained grunt pulled out of him, though the hammering of his own heart in his ears drowns it out.

Louis stands up, brushing the grass off his jeans once again, just in time as three shapes ride onto the grass. Liam, Zayn, and Niall’s faces emerge as soon as they escape the shadows of the looming pine trees. He hears Harry stand up as they climb off their bikes.

“Hey, guys,” Niall greets, pushing Liam off his bike, who falls to the ground with the hunk of metal landing on his left leg. He kicks Niall’s bike and it falls as well, but Niall doesn’t pay it any mind.

He instead looks between Harry and Louis, his eyebrows pinching together, “You lads alright? You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Ghost?” Zayn whispers, pallid-faced with trembling lips. Liam punches his arm once he gets back up and calls him an idiot. Zayn returns it with a kick to the leg.

“No,” Louis is quick to say, glancing at Harry, lips pulled in a tight line. He shakes his head, “I mean yeah. We’re good. Just sitting around.”

Niall looks between them once more, bemused, and opens his mouth to say something else before Harry glances down at his watch and announces, “I have to go now,” He throws a thumb over his shoulder, “Mum wants me home by nine.”

Liam scoffs, and just like Louis, he’ll take any chance he can get to make fun of Boy Wonder, “You have a curfew on the weekend?”

Harry ignores him and picks up his bike, throwing his leg over the other side and peddles away, “See you tomorrow!” He throws over his shoulder, and escapes into the dark.

Niall looks back at Louis after watching Harry disappear, “Why’s he acting weird?”

Louis shrugs his shoulders, “I dunno.” He’s lying, and he knows he shouldn’t. But he’s done a lot of things today he shouldn’t have.  
~

The next day, they don’t end up going to the movies, because when Harry arrives at Louis’ house, he knows something is up. Louis doesn’t think it’s because of last night.

“Did you ask out Eleanor yet?” He asks, looking up from his math homework. It’s the first thing he said since he climbed up the ladder leading to his tree house, almost completely disregarding Louis’ existence with a mere ‘hey.’ But Louis can tell there’s something wrong with the way he just blankly stares down at the paper.

Louis shakes his head, “I’ll probably do it tomorrow at school,” He says, already knowing he won’t go through with it. 

He doesn’t care for Eleanor, nor anyone else in his classes, for that matter. Harry and the boys have taken up Louis’ attention since Harry moved into his neighborhood when he was six and Harry was five, and the rest of the boys since they all banded together at one lunch table, the outcasts of the eight year-olds in their primary school.

“I don’t think you should. I don’t like her.”

Louis looks at him, “What? Why?”

Harry shrugs and goes back to his homework, writing down a few numbers, “She’s ugly. And mean. I think you can do better.”

Louis shakes his head, laughing, “You think everyone’s ugly.”

He thinks back to last night. Maybe he’s an exception. The thought makes him feel weird.

Harry looks at him, and Louis watches his eyes fall to his cheekbones, his eyes, his hair, and burns under his wandering gaze. Harry shakes his head, but Louis ignores it. He gets up and goes to the little bookshelf in the corner of the room, picking up Stuart Little, and sits on the couch. It’s too childish for him, he knows that. But he’s never taken a liking for reading, it’s always been more of Harry’s thing. He looks at the pictures, instead. 

But he can’t focus on the pictures. Because all he can think about is the way Harry’s lips felt against his. He keeps glancing at Harry’s face over the top of the book, while he’s looking down at his homework, and wonders if they’re still as soft as they were yesterday.

“I- um,” Harry says and looks up from the sheet of paper in his hands, sending Louis scrambling to direct his eyes in a different direction, “I’m moving.”

Louis didn’t heart that right, “What?”

“I’m moving.”

Louis stares at him, because what.

Sure, Louis’ tricked Harry into believing he was moving to see the look of pure terror in his eyes, and it’s cruel, but it’s just made him even more sure that Harry really does care about him, that if he were to leave, he’d be truly heartbroken. It’s helped build that trust between them, that Louis doesn’t have to change himself to get Harry to care about him, that Louis doesn’t have to second guess if Harry is only pretending. But Harry doesn’t joke like this. He doesn’t lie to get a reaction from Louis. He just doesn’t do that. 

So he stays silent, fingers going numb first. 

“My dad got a promotion in Cheshire. Holmes Chapel, I think it’s called.” Harry continues, small and careful, like if he says the wrong thing it’ll snap something in Louis. Maybe it will.

Harry stands from his spot on the floor and goes over to a drawer pushed up against the wall. He takes out a map he and Louis have practically destroyed over the years, with markings from crayons and stepping around on the continents of the earth, pretending to be traveling the world. They’ve always talked about growing up and exploring the world together, like in Peter Pan. Though they went to Neverland instead of the real world, Peter Pan and Wendy were together, and it’s kind of all they’ve wanted to do since they watched the movie together in Louis’ basement.

Louis thinks his heart goes numb next, because he isn’t quite feeling yet. But then again, his mind might be numb as well, because he isn’t really thinking about it, what Harry moving to another town really entails. It hasn’t really hit yet. He's never lived a life where his best friend was farther than a block away.

He pulls out all the edges until it's laid flat on the ground, and finds Cheshire. He pinpoints it with his thumb, then looks for Doncaster, keeping it tracked with his index finger. He uses the scale in the corner of the map to measure the distance between his two fingers.

“Eighty miles,” He answers Louis’ unspoken question, glancing up at Louis to find him staring down at the map with no real expression, repeating that number in his head.

Harry places a hand on his shoulder, “It’s okay, Lou. I can still ask my parents to visit-”

Louis pushes his hand off his shoulder, and ignores the look of pain that crosses Harry’s face, “No they won’t. They won’t drive you eighty miles just to see me. Too much gas to burn just to see some stupid boy from Doncaster that’ll be missing his best friend. Eighty miles is a long way, Harry.” He runs fingers through his hair, schooling himself not to cry.

“But...” Harry says, eyes downcast, “You’ll still have the boys. Liam, Niall, Zayn. They’re not going anywhere.”

“But they’re not you, Harry. They’re not my best friends. You are. I haven’t known them for half of my life.”

Louis thinks of something. He doesn’t want to say it out loud, but he knows he’ll hate himself forever if he doesn’t.

“Is that why...” His trails off, eyes following the floorboards, small cracks in between them that show the ground. They’re suspended fifteen feet in the air by rickety wooden beams stuck into the side of a hickory tree, but Louis’ never been afraid of heights. He remembers the first day Harry came to his house, and he downright refused to get in the tree house, pouty lips and crossed arms. Louis climbed up first and showed him it wasn’t scary. His smile grew as he watched the fear dissipate from Harry’s eyes, instead replaced with childish wonder. Louis likes to think he’s helped Harry get over his fear.

“Is that why you kissed me yesterday?” He asks, finding the words that feel so alien as they roll off his tongue. It’s a question he’d never thought he would ask Harry, of all people.

Harry nods, slow, voice drawling, “I would’ve never forgiven myself if I didn’t. Before I left.”

Louis looks back up at him, finding his eyes red, cheeks red, lips red. He wants to kiss him again. Wants to kiss him like how boys kiss girls in the movies. Wants to hold the back of his head and run his fingers through his hair. Wants to try again and feel the sparks fizzle and fly like how people always describe it.

But he doesn’t. Because he knows he isn’t supposed to like boys. He wasn’t supposed to let Harry kiss him yesterday. 

But then he looks at Harry, and forgets everything he’s learned from the Bible, from his parents, from the way gay rights supporters are berated and beat on the news, from the protesters on the street when he’s going to the grocery store.

He doesn’t see a sinner. He sees a boy who’s cut open a space for himself in Louis’ heart, and even if it’s empty when he’s gone, it’s always going to be vacant and awaiting. Waiting for him the next time he sees him.

The next day, Louis helps Harry pack up his things. He gives him a vinyl CD of Sweet Adeline (You're the Flower of My Heart) by Haydn Quartet, and says it reminds him of Harry. Harry knows the lyrics, knows their meaning, but doesn’t question it. He packs it away into one of the cardboard boxes, and they continue on. 

The day after, there’s a moving truck outside of Harry’s house and Louis wants it gone, without Harry in it. Louis knows he’ll always regret being callous when he hugs Harry and almost instantly pulls away, but knows it’ll help him forget Harry and for Harry to forget him. 

So if he does linger for a second longer than he planned, it’s just to take in Harry’s warmth for the last time, nothing else.

He watches the truck drive down the street and turn the corner behind a row of houses, and he feels more alone than ever.

The next day, out of spite and melancholy, he asks out Eleanor at school. She’s giddy when he asks, repeating yes a hundred times and then some. They walk through the halls together with their fingers intertwined between them, aware all eyes are on them. He wonders how it would’ve felt to hold Harry’s hand instead.

He runs his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles, closes his eyes, and pretends.  
~  
June, 1978

“Shit,” He mutters to himself, looking down at his watch. 

Niall raises an eyebrow, downing his milkshake, straw thrown to the side, having lost all common courtesy.

“I’ve got to run,” He says, taking out his wallet and throws down a ten pound note on the table, “Mum’s going to have my head if I’m not back by eleven.”

Liam laughs, “You’ve still got a curfew at nineteen?”

Louis brings his voice to a higher pitch, placing a hand on his hip, “You live under my house, you live under my rules.”

“I’ve been telling you,” Zayn speaks as soon as he removes his lips from his straw, “You should move in with me and Li. We’ve got the space. We could use the extra cash.”

Liam looks at Zayn, “Absolutely not. He’s the dirtiest boy I have ever had the displeasure of knowing,” He shakes his head and Louis can practically see the replay of the first time and only time Liam ever walked into Louis’ room, eyes honing in on underwear thrown across his bed like some sort of trophy, like it's something to be proud of. He’s preferred the living room ever since, “Have you ever even been in his room?”

“Have you ever seen your own?” Zayn taunts, and Liam nods understandingly, muttering a ‘true’.

“Whatever,” He waves a hand in the air, “I’ve got to go. See you boys later.”

He leaves the diner, stuffing his wallet in his back pocket, and gets into his family’s beat up Ford Pinto. He’s always hated the thing, and it embarrassed him to have to drive it. Sometimes he just sat in the car, and imagined himself in a Mercedes-Benz instead. It helped to ease the painful reality of the piece of junk he was driving. 

He rolls down the windows and drives home, feeling the wind cool his skin from the summer heat. Even if the weather is still as rainy as ever, it’s a nice reminder that he’s finished with sixth form and all of that’s behind him. He makes sure to remember that he has to turn in a few forms for Doncaster College. It’s not the best, and he was hoping he wouldn’t have had to stay in this stuffy little town for longer than necessary, but it’s better than nothing. And inexpensive.

Shutting the door behind him, he glances at the clock on the wall, straining his eyes to see it in the dark. Eleven twenty-six.

“Here he is,” His mother, Hannah, says, walking down the stair in a flowy nightgown, “And fashionably late, as always," She sets her hands on her hips, looking all the bit like the stereotypical, nagging mother, "Did you forget what I told you? About tomorrow?”

His mind comes back empty.

She looks at him, incredulous, “Are you serious? The dinner party!” 

“Dinner party? Oh...” There’s a vague memory of dinner last night, his mum mentioning it while handing his dad a plate of mashed potatoes. And then another vague memory of being given a hundred pounds for a pair of trousers and a shirt, a tie if he wanted, ten of which was spent on a milkshake at Kim’s Diner. He winces and doesn’t mention it.

“So? Did you buy a suit?” 

He shakes his head, and she sighs, “I should’ve gone with you. I can’t trust you with the most menial of tasks.”

“Buying clothes isn’t as easy if you’re a man, mum. Whole stores are dedicated to women’s dresses and shoes, and then there’s a small corner for men. It isn’t fair, if you asked me.”

She shushes him, biting back a smile, and sends him up to his room, where he changes out of his clothes and into pajamas. He falls asleep with an inkling of who these supposed guests will be. 

Maybe it’s the big cheese within his father’s business partnerships, the older men who, like his father, are as stiff as nails and judge Louis from his haircut down to the way he holds his fork. Perhaps he’ll get a bit luckier and his mum’s book club will be the ones to show up, women from his mum’s age to their late seventies, who love to kiss Louis’ cheek with staining red lipstick, or comment on how he still doesn’t have a girlfriend. Or, maybe the greater beings above will take pity with him and the old couple next door will come over, though they do make poor conversation, and bring fruitcake drier than their sense of humor that his mum forces him to eat for the sake of not being rude, even if she refuses to even look at the thing herself.

Yet, there’s still that spark of hope that, maybe, this dinner won’t be as vapid as he thinks.  
~

“Wait,” Hannah says, taking the shirt in Louis’ hands and placing it back on the rack, handing him a different shirt. This one is just a plain white, long-sleeved button-up, but he prefers it over the vile striped blue sweater she was trying to convince him to try on. He puts it on and comes out of the dressing room. His mum gushes and walks up to him, smoothing out the shirt and buttoning it up to his neck until it’s practically choking him.

“Okay, okay. I think it’s fine. We’ll get it, yeah?”

“But you have to try on the whole outfit. To make sure it all matches,” She reminds, trying to fold the collar while he’s swatting away her hands away.

“Why are you trying so hard to dress me up? It’s not like there’s gonna be anyone there to impress.”

She smacks his head, and he whines, “Even if there weren’t a pretty young lady going, you always want to make a good impression.”

He takes the trousers and shoes from the basket in his mum’s hand, and walks into the dressing room, talking to her through the door, “So there is going to be a girl there?”

“Oh, yes. And she is absolutely stunning. I’ve discussed it with Ava, her mum, and she thought it would be a great idea to set you two up. They’ve moved back from... Cheshire, I think it was. They sent me a postcard a few months ago of them in the Bahamas, dressed in their bathing suits and sunhats, and they’re such a beautiful family! The grandchildren will be absolutely fetching-” 

His fingers falter while working on the buttons of his shirt, frowning at himself in the mirror. He can’t quite put his finger on where he’s heard the name. He ignores it and continues laboring his fingers, “Woah, there. Going a bit far for never meeting the girl, don’t you think?”

“Don’t be daft, Louis,” She says, and he blurts out an aggrieved ‘hey!’, to which she only laughs, “Of course I’ve met the girl before. She was twelve at the time, but she’s grown into a becoming young woman.”

“And when exactly was the last time you saw her?”

“Eight years ago. But I’ve kept in contact with her mum, Ava Twist, and now she’s told me they’ve moved back. And then I invited them to dinner tonight. How exciting,” He can hear the authentic giddiness in her voice, and feels a smile overtaking him. It’s been a while since he’s heard her this happy about something, “I haven’t seen her in person in years. And now her kids are all grown-up.”

“There’s more of them?”

“Only one. A boy. Harry Styles. He’s striking. But, of course, you probably won’t pay much attention to him. Once you set eyes on Jenna, you’ll probably forget all about everyone else,” She giggles. Louis knits his eyebrows together at his reflection in the mirror, letting his arms fall to his sides.

It’s there again. The foreign familiar that’s so very there on the tip of his tongue, almost enough to give Louis a headache. Everything’s cloudy, Harry, Jenna, Ava Twist, Cheshire. He can’t put his finger on it and it’s killing him.

But she doesn’t notice, because she’s too busy going on about how wonderful their wedding will be and how beautiful Jenna is and how she'll cook her special filet mignon and everything that Louis doesn’t care about. It’s then that the nerves jump start and these aren’t just more mundane neighbors that come and go.  
~

The trousers are a bit tight-fitting in the ass area, his mother insisting it was fine. But now, as he’s standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom, his fan circling overhead and disheveling his hair the slightest, he doesn’t want to do this anymore. The dinner, the trousers, the shirt, the déjà vu family- none of it. He kind of just wants to wrap himself up in his blankets and sleep until the dinner is over.

But now his mum is yelling at him to get downstairs, and he sets the growing urge to crawl into his bed to side for now. 

“Help us set the table, please,” Hannah says once he gets there, his father, Owen, walking past to put down the forks. He takes the plates from her hands, and walks into the dining room. He sets down seven plates, already calling silent dibs on the chair in the corner of the table. He doesn’t want to end up sitting in between the ‘gorgeous’ and ‘charming’ (his mum’s words, not his) Styles siblings. He pulls out the corner chair farther than the others, so he can quickly slip into it before anyone else. 

“Aren’t you excited, Lou?” His mum walks into the room, holding a steaming pot of broccoli with oven gloves, and sets it down at the center of the table.

“Yes, absolutely,” His voice is monotone, but Hannah is having none of it.

She places her hands on her hips, careful not to let the gloves touch her red and white floral dress, “I’m going to need more enthusiasm than that, Louis William Tomlinson. If you even so much as think about misbehaving in front of these people, I will not be afraid to disown you like you’re six.”

He shudders at the thought of her whipping out the belt. He plasters on a toothy grin, claps his hands together, and tries again, “Yes absolutely!”

She nods and walks out of the room, just as the doorbell rings, ominous and lingering throughout the house.

His heart falls to his feet and wonders if it’s not too late to jump the fence in the backyard.

“Oh!” Hannah returns to the living room, hands no longer in kitchen mitts, “They’re here!” She looks a bit panicked as her eyes scan the dining room, kitchen, and living room to ensure everything is in it’s rightful place.

His father looks indifferent to the situation, as he always is when he’s faced with guests. He’s always been more of a listener than a talker. Louis can relate, but his mother has always been the people person in the family.

She puts her hand on the doorknob, but stops and turns to face the boys once more, “Let’s try not to scare them off, yeah?” 

They nod and she inhales a deep breath, before pulling open the door. A shrill scream is the first thing he hears.

“Hannah!” A woman yells, hidden from his sight since his mother is in the doorway. 

Arms are flung around Hannah’s shoulders, at the same time she screams, “Ava!”

The women hug, a wall in between the two families, keeping the rest of the Styles-Twist family behind Ava and Louis and his dad behind Hannah. He’s grateful for it and hopes they never stop hugging. But, of course, they do stop. And then the rest of the family walk into the room.

Ava steps in first, and Louis isn’t even sure if she’s even supposed to be a mum yet. She’s a beautiful, tan woman with raven black hair pulled into a bun atop her head. A velvet swing dress hugs her shapely figure, matching scarlet lips in a feverish grin.

Next comes a jolly man, whose name Louis has come to learn is Andrew, Ava’s husband. He’s a jolly man with a nice smile and graying hair, glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

Then, a young woman he can only guess is Jenna. She’s beautiful, but isn’t as magical looking as his mum made her out to be. But, then again, who is?

She isn’t as dolled-up as her mother, but still just as gorgeous. Her hair is a dark auburn at the top, and as it goes down, turns into a soft blonde. Louis’ never seen anything like it, but it suites her well. He can only guess she’s dyed it. She looks a lot like her mother, Louis notices.

They all shake hands (or holds everyone captive in a bear hug, in his mother’s case), and exchange welcoming greetings and smiley pleasantries. Louis feels his mother’s gaze on them as he and Jenna lean in to peck each other on the cheek, holding her tiny waist with light hands. 'Gentle like a flower,' his mother would remind while she lectured him countless times on how to handle women. 

And Louis finds it ridiculous that he even worried about such normal, calm, totally non-déjà vu inducing people.

That is, until his mother asks, “Where’s Harold?”

Once that question is answered, Louis realizes he was wrong. There are quite magical-looking people on this planet. And one of them just stepped through the doorway.

He’s possibly the tallest man he’s ever seen, at least six feet tall. His long- miles long, in fact- physique is adorned by a fucking tuxedo. This family has money, Louis thinks. 

His hair flows just below his ears and curls at the top, tall and long, an odd hairstyle he’s never seen on a man, but, like his sister's haircut suits her, it suits him. His face is doll-like, pale and sharp, not tan and soft like his mother. He holds himself like a gentleman, something Louis can’t say for himself. He clasps his hands behind his back after he hands Hannah a gift bag and presses a kiss to her cheek, before stepping back and standing tall like a soldier in roll call. But the only difference is the perfect teethed grin he gives, dimples on display.

“Forgive me, I was getting the bag from the car,” He apologizes, voice deep and slow. His eyes fall on Louis, and walks up to him. Louis can hear his heart pumping blood in his ears, watching Harry move into his space. He sticks out a hand, and Louis takes it with as little delay as humanly possible. He gives a firm shake, making Louis feel like a clammy, floppy rag doll. Then Harry lets go first and moves onto his father, saying something to him that makes Louis’ dad laugh. 

His jaw nearly drops at that. His dad is the most impassive, impossible-to-make-laugh person on earth. It takes a good joke about footie or something for Louis to get his dad to laugh, and even then Louis has to think hours ahead of time to plan out execution. But Harry’s just done it in two seconds flat.

And he can now confirm that this family is charming, prepossessing, fascinating, enchanting- all those adjectives Louis could never use to describe himself. And they’ve barely said a word to each other.

“Thank you, Harry,” She says, blushing, “What’s this?”

“Just thought we’d get you all something from Cheshire. We can’t just arrive empty-handed, can we?” Ava answers.

Hannah looks at Louis and his father with astonished eyes that scream ‘Can you believe it!?’ pulling a laugh from the other family.

“Since I don’t really know what’s ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ with the teenagers these days, Jenna and Harry helped pick out a little something for Louis,” Ava smiles at Louis, and he smiles back, feeling his nerves kick back up as all eyes land on him, “And may I add that you’ve grown into such a handsome young man? Doesn’t seem that long ago that I was helping Hannah change your diapers!” She raves, laughing, “You were just the cutest little thing.”

Louis’ mouth falls open at that, shooting crazed eyes at the older woman, before throwing his gaze at the ground, cheeks coloring.

“Look in the bag, hun,” Ava says, pointing to the large bag in Hannah’s hands, black tissue paper flowing over the edges. 

Hannah’s hands dig through the bag, almost greedily. He knows how excited his mum can get when receiving gifts. She reaches in and first pulls out a black box that reads Femme Rochas in curly, golden letters. Hannah gasps and throws his arms over each of their shoulders, once more, “Thank you, thank you. You lot are too kind.”

After turning the box over and pulling out the glass bottle to spritz some on her wrist, she hands the bag to her husband. He doesn’t look as enthusiastic, as always, but still thanks them gratefully when he pulls out a Doncaster Rover’s mug.

The bag is then handed to Louis, who feels around inside, almost jumping when his hand comes in contact with a slip of paper. He pulls it out, and is surprised to see it’s a ticket to a concert.

“It’s, uh...” Harry begins, voice like molasses, scratching the back of his neck, “A ticket to The Roundhouse in London tomorrow. For The Rolling Stones- You’ve probably never heard of them, but they’re my favorite band. And I think you’d like them, so. Yeah,” He sputters, looking at his shoes, “It’s a three hour drive from here, but it’ll be worth it, I promise.”

A smile grows on Louis’ lips without his knowing, eyes scanning over the neon pink ticket, flipping it over like there’s something new to see on the back, “I don’t know what to say. Thank you. I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

Harry looks up, hopeful, eyes meeting Louis’, and it pulls a breath from him. There it is, again. The tip of the tongue familiar, but this time it’s in Harry’s eyes. He feels trapped under his gaze.

“I would have bought a ticket,” Jenna interrupts their... whatever that was, “But I don’t really like big crowds. Or loud music. Or people, for that matter.”

Ava gives her daughter a scolding look and Jenna smirks.

“Well,” Hannah claps her hands together in finality, “We’re all so thankful for the gifts. The food’s getting cold, so let’s sit down, shall we?”

They all nod in agreement and shuffle into the dining room, pulling chairs back and sliding into them. Louis is able to sit in the seat he was originally planning to sit in. Unfortunately, he isn’t able to escape the infamous Styles siblings, with Harry on his left, Jenna across from him, Ava next to Jenna, Hannah on the other side of Harry, Andrew beside his wife, and Louis’ dad on the end of the table. It was a recipe for an impending disaster. But his mother insisted that Jenna sit across from Louis and he didn’t have to question why.

Hannah gets up from her seat and disappears into the kitchen, coming back with a long plate with cuts of beef lined up on along its surface, green beans on the side. The smell wafts to their noses and Louis is barely able to hide the rumble of his stomach with a cough to his fist.

“I just start talking when that happens,” Harry whispers, leaning to the side so Louis can hear him easier. He feels blood rush to his face when he realizes it wasn’t as well-concealed as he thought. Louis says nothing in response, only stares down at his empty plate. 

Once everything’s set up and placed, Owen clears his throat, “Who would like to say our prayers?” He asks, looking around the table, holding his hands out for Andrew and Hannah to take. 

“I’d like to say it,” Harry speaks up first, and Louis takes Jenna’s hand in his right and Harry’s in his left. He closes his eyes, feeling Harry’s smooth hand lay in his- 

No. It’s not the time for that. He instead focuses on the way his voice forms each word that drips like honey so close to him. It’s not any better, but he can’t help it. 

“Lord,” The table goes completely silent, the only noise being Harry’s voice and the occasional shift of someone in their seat, “Thank you for the food bestowed before us, and Louis, Mr. Tomlinson, and Mrs. Tomlinson, for welcoming my family and I into their home with open arms and open hearts. Thank you for all things good, especially those we love that sit at this very table and those that are far away. Amen.”

Louis opens his eyes and pulls his hands away from Jenna and Harry’s grasp, letting them fall into his lap like dead weight. And Louis knows exactly what’s about to come.

“Wow,” His mum swoons. He was right. “Very well said, Harry,” She looks at Ava, surprised, “Your boy is so well spoken. Quite a way with words.”

Ava sets down her glass of wine, dabbing her lips with one of the satin napkins Hannah bought precisely for today, “He’s planning on getting his BFA in Creative Writing. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

Harry nods, dabbing his lips with his own napkin like his mum, and sets it down neatly beside his plate, “Oh, yes. I’ve been accepted to Cambridge,” He confirms nonchalantly, like it’s everyday that you get accepted into fucking Cambridge.

Louis’ jaw drops, “You’ve been accepted to Cambridge,” He says, more so a statement than a question of clarification. Harry looks at him and nods, a smile blooming on cupid bow lips when he sees Louis’ incredulous dropped jaw.

“Yup,” He says, grinning down at his food he hasn’t touched yet, popping the p. It’s then that Louis decides Harry Styles is an extremely unfair person. The height, the charm, the manners, the hair, the looks, the brain- Everything. All of him. It’s unfair.

“Well, I think that’s great, Harry. And I’m betting back in Cheshire, you had a lot of attention from the ladies,” Louis’ mum praises, “Did you have any special girls there? Anyone unique you had to let go?”

Louis can feel the once-animated boy go rigid beside him, and Louis looks at him to see he’s still staring at his plate, any previous trace of smug gone.

“I, uh,” Harry clears his throat, furrowing his eyebrows at his steak cut like it’s talking to him in a different language, “No,” He shakes his head, “I didn’t.”

It’s obvious that wasn’t the answer Hannah was expecting, when she cocks her head to the side, “Huh. Alright. That’s odd for a handsome young man like you.”

Jenna leans further into the table, most likely noticing her brother’s reaction, and jumps into the conversation, “Well, my boyfriend, for one, was absolutely heartbroken. The poor lad was holding my leg as I tried getting into the car, screaming bloody Mary for me not to get in. Was practically chasing us down the street as we drove away,” She says, not looking anguished herself at all.

Ava shook her head, eyes closed, swirling her wine glass in her right hand, “The boy was probably nuts. It was for the best we left, I think. Just to get away from that clingy kid.”

“Louis, Harry,” Louis’ father interrupts the conversation. Louis didn't realize his father and Mr. Twist were having their own conversation on the side, “What do you boys say to a game of footie one of these days? Son versus father game, hmm?”

Andrew lets out a lighthearted laugh, “You’re just asking to get your arse handed to you, mate.”

The two men proceed to get into an ‘argument’, and it’s the most spirited he’s seen his father in weeks. If anything good has come from this nerve-wracking family, it’s how happy they’ve made his parents. 

Harry leans closer into Louis’ space, “You any good at football?”

Louis nods, “I’d like to think so. I was captain of my high school’s football team for my entire sixth form.”

Harry’s jaw drops and Louis’ glad to finally have something that impresses Harry, though it’s not quite as big and spectacular as Cambridge, “No way. Then I’m really going to embarrass myself.”

Louis nudges Harry with his elbow. If they’re going to be stuck together in a car for three hours, a concert, and another three hour drive back, he might as well get comfortable with Harry while they’re at it, “C’mon. Those long legs must be good for something.”

Harry shakes his head, “I hate sports. I’m likely the clumsiest person you’ll ever met.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

Louis shrugs, “You seem charming. Poised. Mary Sue in the flesh.”

Harry raises an eyebrow, “That’s quite an observation for having known me for twenty minutes.”

Louis glances down at the watch laid on his wrist, “Twenty-one, to be exact.”

Harry lets out a genuine chuckle at that, before scrunching his nose with a smile and looking down at his still untouched steak. He picks up a fork, aiming its points at the piece of meat, and sighs, “Well, you’d be surprised to find that I’m not perfect. Far from it, actually.”

There’s melancholy in his voice, despite his subtle grin, and it confuses Louis. But he doesn’t push it, because he’s obviously hit something it’d be best to not press on. 

Louis spaces out as they continue eating, with the table’s mindless chatter as background noise. That is, until they start discussing something that peaks Louis’ interest.

“Speaking of which, have you heard what happened in London?” Ava asks, refilling her wine glass with the bottle.

“What happened?” Owen says, giving her a look that urges her to continue.

“The gays are at it again with their protests,” Louis’ hands stop mid-way from bringing a piece of broccoli to his mouth, “I saw the news the other day saying they were becoming violent. Breaking store windows, stealing stuff, damaging cars.”

Louis heard about that. But what she didn’t mention was how it was just rumors. The ‘protesters’ never became violent.

Owen shakes his head disapprovingly, “Someone should teach those faggots a lesson. The police aren’t doing their job.”

Louis can just barely see Harry scowl in the corner of his vision as he chews on a piece of salmon.

“I don’t see why the government can’t just give the people what they want. They’d stop protesting if they could just get the basic rights they deserve as humans,” Jenna chimes in, bouncing her crossed legs like what’s she just said isn’t controversial at all. 

“Jenna, darling, don’t say such things at the table, please,” Ava says, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looks at Hannah, making a face, “Sorry,” She laughs, “The things she says.”

Jenna scowls, “What? You’re telling me to be quiet because I’m voicing my opinion? Sorry, didn’t realize you were running a monarchy in someone else’s house.”

Hannah laughs, waving her hands in the air, bracelets jangling together, trying to make light of the situation, “Oh, wine! Let’s drink more wine!”

She goes ignored, Ava placing a hand over her collarbones, smiling fake-bright at her daughter, “Honey, please. Don’t make a scene, my dear.”

Jenna almost chokes while sipping her wine glass, sputtering it back into the cup, “Don’t make a scene? You’re the one digging your nose in someone else’s business. Who cares if men are fucking men and women are fucking women? It’s none of your business!” She laughs in an attempt not to burst into flames.

“Language!” Andrew yells, slamming his fists down the table. Ava jumps at that, lifting herself from her seat to pour everyone some more wine.

“Oh, so saying fuck in the context of consensual, natural sex is a crime, but using a derogatory term like faggot in the sense of an insult is said without a bat of an eye? Double-standards, I say.”

“Young lady, gay sex is not natural. It’s a sin,” Owen says, looking at Jenna disbelievingly.

Louis suddenly jumps up from his seat, smiling wide, “What time is it?” He doesn’t even glance at the clock before continuing, “Wow! It’s time for the cinema. C’mon, Harry!”

Harry gladly joins him, throwing back the rest of his wine like a shot, setting it down on the table, thanking Louis’ mum for the dinner, and shakes Louis’ father’s hand. He walks through the door Louis holds open.

“Sorry,” Harry says, laughing breathily, “My family is an absolute mess.”

“’S alright,” Louis says, falling into step beside Harry as they climb down the front stairs, dress shoes clicking against the concrete, “It’s nothing I’ve never seen before.”

“Do your parents fight a lot?”

Louis nods, “Over the simplest of things- But I kind of feel bad for leaving your sister to deal with that by herself, though.”

Harry shrugs, kicking at a stone as they walk, “She likes that kind of stuff. Arguing. Debating. Proving her point,” He chuckles, “Pretty outspoken, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

They walk in a comfortable silence until the streetlamps become sparse and the darkness is replaced with store lights, flickering signs, the headlamps of the occasional car driving past, voices filling up the air, music sweeping through the open doors of discos. Louis takes in the air, and it smells fresh, with a hint of smoke.

“Man...” Harry says, eyes wandering the buildings and lights, “I haven’t been to Doncaster in years. It’s changed so much.”

“When did you move to Cheshire?”

Harry shakes his head side to side, trying to remember, “Nineteen-seventy, I’m pretty sure. When I was ten.”

“So you’re eighteen?” Louis asks and Harry nods.

“I wonder why I don’t remember you when we lived here. Probably because we didn’t mix. You seem like you would’ve been a cool kid, captain of the football team and all.”

“Nah. I wasn’t cool at all. It probably would’ve been because brains and, well, non-brains, don’t mix well. I mean- you’re going off to Cambridge and I’m still fastened to this sleepy little town because I’m stuck in the town’s community college. Can you guess which one of us is winning?”

Harry turns his head to look at Louis’ side profile, “Going to a community college doesn’t make you any lesser. I bet you’re just being modest to hide the fact that you’re a genius. You’ve got a little Einstein working the cogwheels of your brain.”

Louis laughs, hiding his mouth with the back of his hand, “Yup. I’ve got a twenty-three year’s dead physicist in my head. No wonder it isn’t working right.”

Harry guffaws so loudly that a passerby jump as he covers his own mouth with his hands to muffle the sound that’s already been let out, “Stop! I’m trying to be nice here, and you’re just being difficult.”

Louis looks down at his shoes, mentally patting himself on the back for making Harry laugh like that twice in the span of two hours.

“Are you actually taking me to the theater? Or was that an excuse to get us out of there?”

Louis nods his head, pointing towards a building in the distance, purple, blue, and red lights dancing over the movie listings, “I don’t know what’s playing, but I’ll ask what’s good.”

They walk up to the little ticket booth, to find Zayn inside, chewing gum obnoxiously and leaning against the glass.

“Oh, Zayn. I didn’t know you were working tonight,” He holds his fist up to the glass, and Zayn knocks his own fist against the glass, fist bumping without actually making contact.

“Who’s this?” Zayn asks, nodding his head in Harry’s direction. Harry gives him an awkward wave, and Zayn returns it with his own mocking wave, lips pulled in amusement.

“Zayn, this is Harry, my mum’s friends’ son. He just moved here from Cheshire. Harry, this is Zayn, my best mate. Obviously, you can tell he’s a sore loser by the fact that he’s working on a Saturday night while the rest of us are out having fun.”

Zayn points an accusing finger at Louis, “You’re just jealous because you don’t even have a job, meanwhile I’m making big money. I just got a four pence raise, so suck on that, bitch.”

“Wow, I’m sorry I ever judged you, Zayn,” He says, rolling his eyes, grinning, “So what’s playing now?”

Zayn sighs, “Well, I’m just going to make it short and simple here. Grease is your best bet. I watched it with Liam the other day, and he won’t stop singing the songs from it. Can’t blame him, though. They’re pretty catchy.”

Louis snakes a hand into his back pocket, but stops when another hand drapes over his.

“Stop. I’ll pay for it.”

Louis shakes his head, looking back to find Harry pulling his own wallet out of his pocket, “You paid for the concert tickets. It’s the least I can do.”

Harry ignores him, instead pulling out a twenty pound note, despite the tickets being only five pounds each. He steps in front of Louis, handing the ticket to Zayn through the small hole in the glass, “Keep the change.”

Zayn hands them two tickets and they walk into the theater.

“I feel really out of place. We’re walking around in suits like snobs and everyone else is dressed up like they’re here to actually watch a movie and not attend a court hearing.”

Louis feels a smile tug at his lips, lowering his voice to a whisper, “At least we look like we’re important. Like, businessmen. Celebrities.”

They hand their tickets to a worker standing in front of the theater door and pocket the ticket stubs they get back.

“Enjoy the movie,” He mutters, tepid and rehearsed.

The first first half of the movie is relatively uneventful, Louis and Harry leaning across their shared armrest to make hushed fun of the actors and question how everyone just automatically knew the lyrics and dance to each song. But halfway through the movie, the amount of wine they drank at dinner suddenly kicks in, and they go through the second half, laughing and singing along to the songs they learn quickly. They ignore the constant shushes they get from other moviegoers and manage to not get kicked out before the movie ended. They stumble onto the street once it’s finished, in the midst of replicating the ending scene at the carnival.

“You’re the one that I want, you are the one I want,” Louis bumps into the wall of a liquor store. He holds himself up against the wall as he sings, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey.”

“The one that I need,” Harry wraps his fingers around a streetlamp and spins himself on it, almost falling into the street, “Oh yes indeed,” He attempts to do the finger wave Sandy does at Danny, but bumps into a fire hydrant. He places a hand on top of it, gasps, and apologizes to the ‘little boy.’

Louis bursts into a fit of giggles as Harry walks towards him, arms bent at the elbow and swinging in step with his feet, Louis walking backwards and mirroring his actions, “I better shape up,” They sing at the same time, skipping Sandy’s verse in it’s entirety in favor of the pre-chorus, since it’s the only thing they know, voices wavering, “Cause you need a man.”

They reach one of the diner’s windows, Louis nudges Harry with his shoulder. Harry somehow gets exactly what Louis is trying to do, and they face the large windows, catching some patron’s eyes. They grab their belts- or in Harry’s case, the front of his trousers, given he doesn’t have a belt, and they step side to side at the same time, swiveling their hips back and forth with each step. Parents cover their children’s eyes, though there’s nothing really obscene about it, and some teenagers stare astonished at the boys, and obviously those who have watched Grease clap for them. 

They’ve continued walking down the street and Harry’s doing the hand jive while Louis watching him do it, dumbfounded at the fact he was able to memorize it within the five minutes the scene was onscreen, when someone decides to shout at them.

“Fucking faggots!” They scream, pronunciation slurred. Harry stops dancing and Louis stops watching as they turn their heads to find a man in a dimly lit parking lot, bearing a can of cheap beer, leaning against his car, looking drunker than Louis and Harry combined. 

Louis’ face falls as the man continues to shout disparaging names at them, like “Dykes!” and, “Perverts!” It sobers him up quickly.

“Don’t listen to him,” He says, eyes sad, but smile still faint, “He’s probably some lowlife that doesn’t have anything better to do than get smashed and hide in dirty parking lots.”

And Louis knows he’s trying to make him feel better, but it doesn’t help. But he doesn’t let Harry’s attempt go without reward, offering him a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “Let’s just go, yeah? I’m sure your mum is wondering where you are.”

Harry looks at him, and Louis can feel his eyes wandering his face, pausing. But then he nods, small and slow. They continue walking, trying to ignore the drunken wails of the man-baby.

They don’t get very far before Harry stops in his tracks, the muscles under his jaw flickering. Louis looks at him, confused, tugging on the sleeve of Harry’s suit, “C’mon. What are you doing?”

Harry meets Louis’ eye, gives him a wink, and turns around. Louis’ confusion only grows tenfold when he walks in the opposite direction and into the parking lot they passed.

He can see a nasty grin grow wide on the man’s cheeks, pushing himself off of his car as Harry comes closer. Louis follows, but stays farther back, afraid they’re going to break into a fight.

“Looks like the homo’s come to play,” The guy laughs throatily, beer belly jiggling with each quick exhale of breath. Though the man looks more fat than muscle and moves sluggishly compared to Harry, he can already tell Harry doesn’t stand a chance, despite his lean physique.

“Harry, stop. What are you-” Louis cuts himself off as, instead of throwing a punch or tackling the man, Harry walks past the guy as he tries to grab at whatever limb of his is closest, and breaks into song once more.

“This car could be systematic,” He sings, putting his hands on the hood of the car, looking back as the man hobbles over, Harry’s face completely devoid of worry or fear, instead beaming at Louis, “Hydromatic. Ultramatic. It could be Grease Lightening!” He pretends to shove off his imaginary leather jacket, and hoists himself up and onto the man’s car. 

He steals a breath out of Louis as he hops on the car’s hood, turning to face Louis and the man once again, “You get some overhead lifters and four-barrel quads, oh, yeah.”

Louis breaks into a sprint as his face breaks into a smirk, running past the man, and joins Harry on the hood of the car, “Keep talking, whoa, keep talking.”

Harry puts his arms low by his sides, humping the air in the man’s direction, “A fuel injection cutoff and chrome plated rods, oh, yeah.”

“We’ll get her ready, we’ll get her ready,” Louis sings, ducking down in time to dodge the beer bottle the man hurls at his head.

“With a four-speed on the floor, they’ll be waiting at the door,” They sing at the same time, Louis falling back onto the roof of the car, laying on his back and kicking his feet in the air, pedaling his legs. Harry points at the man as they sing the next lines, “You know that ain’t no shit, we’ll be getting lots of tit, in Greased Lightnin'!”

Harry hops off the car as the man begins to swing at his legs, his belly pressing up against the windows of the car, “Go, go, go!”

Louis follows after him, sliding off the roof and dodging the man’s arms as they flair in the air. He looks back at the car to ensure they didn’t cause any dents or damage, and runs after Harry, who’s looking over his shoulder at him, already halfway across the parking lot. 

He can feel his heart beat in his chest, breaths wild and loud as their feet pound at the concrete, carrying them back to Louis’ house. It’s kind of pointless for them to be running, considering the man definitely wasn’t- couldn’t chase them. But he didn’t question it and didn’t stop, because he was having fun. He wishes he could live in this moment forever, with Harry beside him, running from some unforeseeable force.

They only stop when they finally arrive at Louis’ driveway, kneeling over and catching their breath, or in Louis’ case, falling on the ground and laying there. Harry looks down at him for the first time since they started running, and laughs. It makes Louis laugh, and soon enough, they’re laughing like madmen at the fact that they just did that.

The front door swings open, and Louis and Harry’s parents step out, Jenna trailing behind with the biggest grin on her face.

“We were worried sick about you boys. How long was the movie?” Hannah asks, concerned.

“We-” Louis stops, choking out a cackle, “It finished at nine, but we decided to get something to eat afterwards.”

They all look suspiciously at each other, before she points out, “What’s that stain on your shirt, Louis?”

Louis looks down to find a large, brown stain on the breast pocket of his white button-up, not realizing it was there before.

“He spilled some pop on himself, it’s no biggie. Just use dish washing detergent, white vinegar, warm water, and it’ll be out in no time,” Harry answers in breakneck speed, straightening up and recollecting himself with a grin. It’s apparently convincing enough that instead of his mum going on, Hannah looks impressed and smiles back at Ava, dismissing the situation. 

“Well, when you two boys are ready, you can join us inside charades.”

They all walk back into the house, leaving Louis and Harry to themselves again.

“I guess the Cambridge nerd wasn’t as innocent as I thought.”

Harry walks over to him, laughing faintly as he extends an arm to Louis. He takes it and pulls himself up from the ground, dusting off his jeans.

“You’re absolutely mad,” Louis comments with a curve of his lips he can’t seem to wipe off, “I hope you know that.”

“Hey,” Harry says, “You joined me. You’re acting like I was the only one jumping on his car.”

“True, but. What if he calls the police on us? He probably remembers our faces.”

Harry takes that into consideration for a second, scrunching his lips to his nose, before waving a hand in the air, “Who cares? He’s probably too drunk to work a telephone right now, let alone remember our faces in a dim parking lot. Don’t worry about it. He got what he deserved.”

Louis laughs, shaking his head and looking down at his shoes. They’re dirtier than they were a few hours ago, but there’s no surprise in that. He can feel Harry’s eyes on him.

“No, but- Um,” Louis gathers himself, getting serious, but still keeping his tone light and smile ever-present, meeting Harry’s gentle gaze, hoping the sincere in his voice reaches him, “Thank you. For that. For... making me feel better.”

Harry nods, “Of course. He had no right to say that.”

They’re left in silence after that, distant honking and closer crickets filling the midnight air, the summer humidity prickling their skin and leaving them with a fresh sheen of sweat on their foreheads only cooled by a breeze that blows past every now and again. 

It’s a tranquil sort of quiet you never get in the summertime, but here they are, reveling in it with the high of pretty much committing a crime mere minutes ago. Louis isn’t sure if he’s ready to admit that that tonight was the most exciting night he’s ever had, and it’s happened nineteen years into his life, an almost stranger by his side, despite feeling like he’s known this person his entire life.

This person he’s been staring at for the past minute without realizing it.

“Well,” Harry says, looking away from Louis after perpetuity, cheeks tinting a fine red, “I think we should... go inside. Don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“Oh, yeah,” Louis agrees, clearing his throat. He follows Harry into the house and into the chaos that is their families engaging in a definitely not passive game of charades.  
~

“Wrong soap, dear,” Hannah switches out the bottle of hand soap in Louis’ hands for dish washing liquid. He shoots her a thankful look, returning to the plates in the sink. They’re cleaning up after everyone’s left, his father showering upstairs.

“So,” He begins, aware he’s stepping into a minefield, “How’d you think of Jenna? Everything you expected, and more, huh?”

He can see her tensing in the corner of his eye, “Yes. She’s very... opinionated. But very beautiful, of course.”

Louis feels his smile pinching his cheeks, attempting to hide it by hunching over. He loves being right, having known the high bar his mother set wouldn’t be met, “She wasn’t quite what you expected, yeah?”

He can see her setting her own plates down and turning towards him, “She is a kind, respectful, gorgeous young lady. That’s exactly what I expected beforehand. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Louis.”

“I’m not playing at anything. I’m just saying. You didn’t expect her to have those views, and only focused on her looks before. You expected her to keep her mouth shut, look pretty, and agree with whatever you had to say-”

“I did not,” She interrupts, stern, “Don’t say that. She has her opinions, and I respect them,” She lowers her voice to a whisper, not meant for her son’s ears, “Even if it’s wrong.”

Louis laughs aloud, arching his back and looking up towards the sky, feeling rage within him bubble up that threaten to breach the surface, “You just contradicted yourself right there. You don’t respect her opinion, because she thinks gays are humans and should have the same rights-”

“Because it’s unnatural!” She spits like venom, and Louis is almost surprised not to hear the shatter of glass, “Those f-faggots are disgusting animals! There must be something seriously wrong with Jenna for her to think that’s okay, that it’s okay to sin. Because it’s not. They’re all nuisances to the world, and don’t deserve to live beside us normal folk. They’re sinners. Disgusting, disgusting sinners.”

Louis looks at his mum, who is now furiously scrubbing away at the plates beside him, and sees a different woman. 

Not the caring woman who read him bedtime stories every night up until he was fifteen. The woman who let Louis stay home even when she knew he was lying about having a cold just to avoid school because she wanted to spend time with her boy. Not the woman who wrote little notes and reminders, sticking them in his lunchbox so he would pull them out and read them in the cafeteria. Not the woman who turned on music after Louis came home from school, ears ringing with the words boys at school had called him, pulled him up from his sulking circle on the couch and danced with him to Jailhouse Rock until he, “Turned that frown upside down.”

No, he sees a monster in the shape of his mother. He sees one of those women he’d read about in newspapers that would find her son sleeping with another boy and immediately kick him out and leave him in the streets, pulling out the victim card and claiming she 'had' to do it. He sees a woman who would protest at pride parades held in the streets of London, holding up signs and spitting on anyone wearing bright colors, turning her nose as they were beaten by other protesters. He sees a woman who would loathe a person she’s never met, never talked to, never looked at just because they can’t control who they fall in love with.

And the fact that she can flip the switch between the two of them so easily scares him more than he would like to admit.  
~

Louis wakes up before the sun the next morning, giving up on a sleepless night’s rest, and kicks the blankets away. They pool at the foot of his bed, and as they do, he remembers the night before with Harry. The memory almost makes his post-blotto headache bearable. A smile creeps on his lips without his knowing as he walks into his bedroom and brushes his teeth.

Twenty minutes later, he’s skipping breakfast and stepping out onto his porch. The sky is a deep blue, void of clouds, and it really does feel like summer. He inhales the air and smells the sun’s rays before he sees them. 

Something takes over his legs and he’s walking forward down the steps and down the sidewalk. He has the sudden urge to go to the park, and he would usually go against waking up this early in the morning, let alone go outside, but the same thing that’s moving him forward is the same thing that takes over his thoughts with a glass half-full attitude. He can tell today’s going to be a good day.

Surprisingly enough, considering the time, the park is busy. Teenagers strewn over blankets, loosely-dressed joggers run past, bird watchers observing, well, birds, of course, old couples sitting on benches that feed geese waddling past, children playing on the playgrounds and swing sets all occupy the area. Louis’ never come to the park this early, but he could get used to it.

He’s walking on the curving concrete, staring at the microscopic ripples from fish that swim close to the surface, but don’t quite make themselves shown, when he almost steps on a furry mass on the floor.

“Shit!” He yells, sidestepping to the left, narrowly missing the dog’s paw, and looses his footing. He trips over his own two feet and is about to fall into the water, when someone juts their arm out and grabs his wrist. He yelps as he suddenly feels himself being pulled to the right, a large hand placed on his waist to steady him, before the hand retreats back to the side of someone who doesn’t really matter at the moment, because his eyes fall on the world’s most cuddly-looking dog. And he almost stepped on the poor thing.

The dog, a white Cocker Spaniel with spots of gold on its nose sticks its tongue out and wags its tail, staring up at Louis with big brown eyes. Louis crouches down and sticks his hand out for the dog to sniff, but instead nuzzles its head against his palm.

“I’m so sorry, buddy. Didn’t see you there. I guess I should’ve watched where I was-”

He’s cut off by a deep clear of the throat. Louis notices that the dog, unsurprisingly, has a black and blue collar with a leash leading up to someone’s hand. His eyes drag up the leash, until they land on a scrunch-nosed, smirking, sun-hazy Harry Styles. Because of course it is. 

Louis stands up, nearly giving himself whiplash, and takes a step back, “Oh! Harry. Didn’t see you there.”

“Not even a full twenty-four hours from meeting me and you’re already trying to murder my dog?” Harry queries, biting back a bemused laugh.

“No! I- Uh,” Louis struggles for words, flustered, feeling his body betray him with the way he knows his face is flushing, “I wasn’t looking where I was walking, and-”

Harry finally lets out a laugh, “I’m kidding, Louis. I know you didn’t mean to. He’s alright. Aren’t you, Bob?” His attention turns from his dog back to Louis and lets his smile overtake his features, eyes crinkling in the corners, dimples becoming deeper and more prominent, “Though, I guess I'm not the only one with two left feet.”

“Wait,” Louis laughs, holding a flat palm out, “You named your dog Bob?”

Harry smiles and nods, looking almost too proud of himself, “Yeah, isn’t it great? Dogs with people names are the best.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, bending down to pet Bob, “Forget what I said. You are much too innocent for this world. Ain’t that right, Bob?” Louis drops his voice an octave, moving his head and contorting his mouth with effort to make his voice absurd and what he would imagine a dog would sound like if it could speak, “My owner is an overgrown child.”

Harry shoots him a glare, more amused than offended, bending over and runs a hand down Bob’s back, “I’ve never imagined Bob sounding like that. I thought it would be more of like a-” Unlike Louis, he brings his voice an octave higher, unfitting with his usually rugged, gruff voice, “Like this. It’s better, innit?” His tone is that of a stereotypical posh Brit, raucous and thick, but still smooth like Harry’s stock voice.

“No, absolutely not.” Louis says, voice still low, placing hands on the either side of Bob’s face and shakes it side to side, careful to be gentle with the sweet creature.

Harry places his hand next to Louis’, Louis unintentionally brushing his hand against his, noticing the size and difference. Bob looks up at both boys, reveling in the attention, “I’m an classy, sophisticated, swanky gentlema- dog. Do not associate me with that lesser, disgusting, peasant voice you are attempting.”

Louis laughs, breaking his character for a second, “Do I look like a damn squeaky snob?”

They continue on like that, interrupting one another with wobbling impersonations of varied accents and pitches. It earns them quite a few odd looks they don’t notice, considering they're too busy out-doing each other. 

“Alright,” Louis says in his normal voice, returning to his full height, but not before landing a kiss atop Bob’s head, “I think we’ve scarred your dog enough.”

Harry joins him in standing up, picking up his leash from where he let go of it to fully absorb the dog-petting experience, “I’ve done it enough times for him to be blasé to it.”

Louis mutters an, “Of course,” Before something else pops up in his mind, shifting the conversation in a completely different direction, “Oh! When time are we driving over to London? And what should I bring? I’ve never been to a concert before.”

“Well, the concert starts at seven, and it’s a three hour drive from here to there, so I’ll pick you up from your house at around four. Unless you want to come to my house, and we can drive from there? By the way, can we walk while we talk? I think Bob is getting a bit restless.”

Louis nods, and he falls into step beside Harry, Bob zig-zagging forward between them. “Do you think you can pick me up from mine first? I don’t really know where you live, so.”

Harry waves his hand in front of his face, “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Sorry. Yeah, I can do that. And to bring, you should, obviously, bring your ticket, and probably a bottle or two of water for the car ride to and back. Snacks, if you want, but we might end up getting something to eat after the concert. You should probably wear short, casual clothes, since it’s probably going to be packed and lots of people packed together,” He notices Louis wrinkle his nose at that, and chuckles.

“No- I promise, it’s not as bad as it sounds. You won’t be like, constantly touching someone else, but it’ll probably get pretty sweaty,” Louis really, really tries not to think of the innuendo that obviously flies right over Harry’s head, “And what else should you bring...” He taps his chin with his forefinger, then, “Oh, definitely don’t forget yourself. That’d be a problem.”

Louis shakes his head, biting his bottom lip, “Now, I dunno about that last one. I tend to forget myself at home sometimes, so you might have to remind me.”

Harry snickers beside him, pulling on the leash when Bob gets distracted by a duck padding in the grass surrounding the pond.

“Yeah, and that should be all you need to know. I’ve got the rest covered.”

“Okay,” Louis offers him a smile, “Thank you. Sorry for all the explaining you had to do. Large events scare me and I liked to be prepared. I don’t know how this stuff works.”

Harry shakes his head, furrowing his eyebrows and smiling, “It’s alright, I’m the same way, honestly. I don’t usually like big venues with lots of people, but when I heard that the Rolling Stones were playing in London, I just had to go. And then I remembered my mum mentioning you, and I didn’t want to go alone, so I thought I could ask you to come with me.”

“Well, it wasn’t really asking. More so a, ‘Here I am, here’s a really expensive ticket, let’s go to this really crowded concert three hours away with a random band performing that you probably don’t know, but I do!’”

Harry stops in his tracks beside him. Louis looks back to find Harry, fear in his eyes, “I-I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel, like, obligated to go. Just because I bought the tickets, doesn’t mean you have to go with me. I’ll be okay going alone-”

“Harry,” Okay, Louis is kind of endeared, “It’s just sarcasm. Of course I want to go,” He feels a pang in his heart because of the boy in front of him, who looks on the verge of tears. He walks towards him, laughing softly, placing a hand on his shoulder, “I’m sorry. I feel like such an asshole right now. You can make fun of me, if you want to make it fair.”

Harry stares down at him, Louis watching his eyes fall to different structures of his face, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Harry apparently kicks back into his senses, head jutting backwards a bit, averting his eyes and clearing his throat, “No, it’s alright. I-I definitely knew that,” He laughs self-deprecatingly, and it doesn’t help Louis at all with the whole feeling-like-the-biggest-asshole-in-the-entirety-of-history thing. But they both forget about it, instead continuing on with their walk.

“So, um,” Harry starts, passing by an old woman sitting on a bench, tossing breadcrumbs at the ducks who pool around her feet. They shoot her a smile, returning a warm one of her own, “I know assumptions are always completely off, but I didn’t take you for a morning person, for some reason. I don’t know why.”

“Well, you’d be right, because this was the first time since the end of sixth form that I’ve woken up this early.”

Harry cocks his head, looking at Louis, “How come? I mean, why did you wake up early today?”

And Louis didn’t know what to say to that. 

He could say, ‘I couldn’t fall asleep because I spent all night thinking about you, and what we did, and my bigot of a mother, and the guy who called us faggots, and how the concert would turn out, and why you got awkward at dinner when my mum asked if you had a girlfriend, and why you remind me of the little boy on the hill I see every night in my dreams, and if you sleep with your blanket over your face like me because you’re afraid of seeing shapes moving in the darkness, and if you like scary movies, and what your favorite color is, and what your favorite food is, and when I could see you again, and why are you the most interesting thing to happen to me in months.’

But that’s kind of pushing it.

So he settles on a shrug, and, “Couldn’t sleep.”

And Harry takes it without question. Phew.

Once they’ve reached the end of the sidewalk, Louis places his hands on the front of his thighs, touching the fabric of the jeans he carelessly threw on, and says, “I think I’m gonna go home now, probably sleep for a while longer, since I haven’t slept in, like, twenty hours. See you soon, Harry,” He gets on his knees in front of Bob, and wraps his hands around the dog’s body, giving him an encompassing hug, “And I’ll see you very soon, hopefully.”

“Alright, alright. I don’t need my dog getting attached to you, too,” Harry laughs, then stops abruptly. 

Louis looks up at him, still petting Bob, “Too?”

Harry’s eyebrows shoot up, “Um- I. He’s pretty- Er, attached to me. Obviously. Because he’s my dog.”

Louis would’ve easily taken that answer and left it at that, but given the stuttering, it’s obvious that isn’t what he meant. He gets up, nonetheless, and stops touching the dog, “I’ll see you later.”

He leaves the park, walking back to his house, and passes a storefront, glancing at its glass. He notices a car drive up next to him in its reflection. He turns to find Niall inside of his car, head bobbing to whatever song was on the radio.

“Lou! The lads and I are heading to the park to play footie. Want to come? I’ll drive us.”

Normally, Louis would never turn down a game of football, let alone with his best friends, but right now he’s feeling exhausted, and his bed is calling his name.

“Sorry, Nialler. I hate to skip out on you guys, but I’ve got to go somewhere in a few hours, and I’ll be out of town for the entire day. Maybe we can hang out tomorrow?”

Niall nods, but Louis can see his confused expression from behind his sunglasses. The sun has started to peak out, and if he doesn’t want to give his mum a heart attack, he’s got to get home before she wakes up, “Where are you going?”

“A concert in London. With Harry.”

His face contorts in even more confusion, “Who’s Harry?”

Oh. Louis forgot he hasn’t introduced Harry to everyone. He feels like he’s known him for so long everyone should already know who he is, “My mum’s friend just moved to town. He’s her son. He’s taking me to a concert.”

“Oh. Zayn mentioned him earlier, but he forgot his name, so,” Louis doesn’t find it hard to believe Zayn has already forgotten someone he’s just been introduced to. Niall looks forward in the road, seeing the park just behind a few buildings up ahead, and nods to Louis, “Well, I hope you guys have fun. Don’t do drugs. Don’t drink. Or maybe do, who cares. Bring the lad if we end up doing something tomorrow, I’d love to meet the guy and corrupt him in record time.”

Louis nods, grinning, elated with the fact that Niall’s already made Harry a part of their group plans without even meeting him, “Okay. I will. I’m sure he’ll be excited. I’ll see you later, mate.”

They wave and go their separate ways. Louis manages to get back home in five minutes, crawling back under the discarded sheets without his mum waking up and investigating. He stares at his ceiling, wide awake, after shutting the blinds so the room is back to its neutral darkness, thinking. Thinking about anything and everything, but especially about Harry, and the way he stumbled over his words when he mentioned his dog being obsessed with someone else. 

He doesn’t end up falling asleep, too caught up somewhere in between thinking about the concert and wondering if there’s something more to the boy than he let on.  
~

“Please, please, please stay safe and smart, my sweet boy. I don’t need you coming back high or drunk and knowing twenty curse words in five languages. Please don’t do anything you’ll regret. Don’t lose each other in the crowd. Have fun, make sure you keep those quarters on you in case you need to call me. Enjoy yourself, don’t fall asleep on the wheel in case you drive-”

“Thank you, mum. I get it. I won’t...” He looks behind her, out the window, and spots a car he guesses is Harry’s pull up, “Do anything bad. I love you. Bye,” He pecks her on the cheek, pulling her into a quick hug, then swings open the door and practically races across the grass, his mum calling out motherly reminders he doesn’t listen to.

He does a double take as he slows down, nearing Harry’s car. Harry leans out of the window, Ray Bans on the bridge of his nose. 

“I’m sorry. I think I’ve mistaken you for Harry Styles, who you’re obviously not, because you’re driving an actual fucking Aston Martin,” Louis says, gobsmacked, afraid to even lay a finger on the car in case he’ll leave prints on its shiny metal.

Harry laughs, disregarding his comment, and sticks out a fist, “Have you got your ticket?” When Louis nods, he sticks out his thumb, working his fingers like a checklist, “Clothes? Well, obviously,” He says, looking Louis up and down. He’s wearing a plain black t-shirt, denim shorts, and his favorite black Chucks he wears everyday- If he goes outside, that is. Once he’s done looking at Louis’ outfit, taking longer than Louis finds necessary, he continues counting off his fingers, “Water? I see,” He spots the two bottles of water in Louis’ hands, “And...” He scrunches his eyebrows, leaning forward from the car, and looking over Louis’ shoulder. Louis begins to panic, until, “I think you forgot yourself,” He points at the house, and Louis can almost imagine a hand on his hip from behind the car door that obscures his vision from Harry’s lower half, “Go back and get it.”

“Ha, ha,” Louis says, raising a middle finger he instantly throws back down in case his mother sees. Harry lets out a surprised laugh and hits his head on the door frame, rubbing his head as Louis rounds the car and climbs into the passenger seat. He places each water bottle in the cup holders of the car’s console. 

“London ready?” Harry asks, giving him a thumbs up, waiting for Louis to give thumbs back. He does, and he puts his foot on the gas pedal, accelerating them forward, but not before leaning over Louis and waving at Louis’ mum, “Bye Mrs. Tomlinson!”

Once they reach their first red light, Harry says, “So, I think it’d be a good idea if you listened to some of their songs, maybe learn a few lyrics. Reach into the glove compartment, please.”

Louis does as asked and pops it open. A few CD sleeves slide into his lap from their shift of gravity. Louis jumps, not expecting them to land on him, and can hear Harry laugh from beside him, muttering something akin to ‘cute’ under his breath. But it could’ve just been the wind blowing through the windows, or something.

He reaches into Louis’ lap and picks up one of the CDs labeled Aftermath in black sharpie. “Put this one in, please.”

Louis looks at the CD, and looks back at Harry, “Uh... put it in... where?”

Harry chuckles, “What do you mean? There,” He points to the radio, letting go of the steering wheel with his left for a second.

“I wouldn’t know, because the piece of shit my parents have owned for years doesn’t even have a place to put in CDs, so. Yeah. I’m not caught up with this technology,” He says, pressing the CD into the little slot. The CD disappears into the radio, and Louis’ eyes go wide, “Woah.”

“What?” Harry says, taking his eyes off the road and onto Louis as the car comes to a full stop at another red light.

Louis looks at the radio, eyes sparkling at the shiny radio, his teeth beginning to show as his lips pull apart to smile, “It took up the thing! The CD!”

Okay. Harry is kind of endeared. The smile on his face is unrelenting as he says, “Yeah. It’s what it’s supposed to do.”

“I know, but I’ve never seen it with my own eyes. How do I turn on the music?”

“The button with the triangle on its side, that’s it. The first song that’s going to play is Paint It, Black, from their fourth album, Anthem. The whole album is on the CD, which is why I labeled the Anthem on the sleeve, which you’ve probably already figured out. It’s my favorite song from everything they’ve recorded thus far. My favorite song in general, actually.”

Louis nods, listening to the music start up, and gazes out the window. He reads a milk advertisement on a billboard as the first strings of a sitar are played. It turns into something completely different than what Louis expected when drums begin to play, a man's voice seeping through the speakers.

Louis can barely hear the man when Harry’s voice powers over it, fingers tapping against the steering wheel in rhythm with the beat, “I see a red door and I want it painted black.”

The song picks up very quickly as Harry sings, “I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes,” Other instruments join in, and Louis can already see how much Harry loves this song by how much he gets into it.

He calms down, as the song does, at the lyrics, “I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black,” But then it picks up again, and Louis is almost worried if Harry is even supposed to be driving when he’s practically jumping out of his seat. 

Louis laughs, focusing more on the boy than the song, watching the way he sings with passion, screaming when the singer does, and bringing his voice lower when he does. And Louis can hear the appeal in this song. He suddenly stops dancing, turning to Louis for the first time since the song started, and deepening his voice, if that’s even possible. Since they’re at yet another red light, he sticks a finger in Louis’ face, breathily singing while Louis pretending to bite the air in front of said finger, “No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue. I could not foresee this thing happening to you.”

As Harry begins to lose himself in the music once again, Louis decides he might just end up watching Harry the entire concert.

The song finishes, and he starts clapping, trying not to drop the rest of the forgotten CDs. He sticks them back into the glove compartment so he won't have to deal with it.

“Sorry. I was probably so loud you couldn’t hear the song.”

Louis shakes his head, “You’ve got a good voice. Like, really good.” 

Harry looks down at the steering wheel, “If only I quit singing, you probably could’ve heard Mick Jagger singing- He’s the lead singer. He has the best set of vocals I’ve ever heard.”

Louis shrugs, “Guess I’ll have to catch it live.”

Harry’s still out of breath from his little performance, but still manages a laugh, “Yeah. I guess you will.”

Forty minutes in, Louis is nodding off, his lack of sleep finally catching up to him, last dregs of energy slipping away. As much as he wants to continue listening to Harry sing along with that voice of his, he can’t keep his eyes open. Harry looks over as they're driving down a winding road, slowing at another stoplight.

“If you’re falling asleep, I can turn off the music, and you can go into the backseat. There’s a blanket back there, I think, that you can use.”

Louis shakes his head, “N-no. I’m... fine,” He mutters as the car decelerates, inertia and exhaustion bringing Louis to smash his head against the dashboard. 

Harry laughs, concerned, “Stop being ridiculous. Get back there before the light changes.”

Louis does, not wanting to fight it anymore, and crawls into the backseat. He spots the fleece blanket on the floor, picking it up without even bothering to question if it was clean, seeing as everything in this car is virtually spotless. It didn’t surprise him, really, since the boy who owns it has the ability to recall how to get soda stains out of clothes off the top of his head.

“Goodnight, Lou,” He hears Harry whisper from the front seat, and Louis tries to respond, he really does, but it comes out completely incoherent, even he’s aware of that.  


“Louis,” He’s shaken awake, and Louis is about five seconds from telling his mum to fuck off, before he opens his eyes to find that it’s not at all his mother, but instead Harry, who’s leaning over him. He realizes the door above his head is open, and Harry stuck his upper body through it to wake Louis up, “Wake up. We’re here.”

~

He sits up and yawns, looking through the front window, and seeing a large circular building towering over the car. Along its brick walls, are posters of what Louis presumes to be the Rolling Stones band themselves, and a red tongue with lips a matching shade. He sees what looks like hundreds of teenagers and young adults pouring into the building, and Louis wonders if it’s as big on the inside as it looks on the outside. There’s only one way to find out.

He turns his head to find Harry smiling at him, and gives him his own smile, voice hazy around the edges from sleep, eyes closing on their own accord, “We’re here.”

“Yeah. Let’s go inside before it gets too packed.”

Louis nods and pushes himself out of the car, feet finding and hitting the ground. His bones crack into place as he stretches, arching his back and yawning again. Harry stuffs his wallet in his pocket and holds up his ticket, “Got yours?”

Louis feels for his pocket, pulling out his own wallet and opens it to find the little pink piece of paper. He waves it in the air for Harry to see and closes the car door behind him, following Harry into the venue. They hand their tickets to the worker outside of the door, shuffling in through the narrow space along with the impossible amount of men and women swarming into the building. He can’t imagine this many people fitting into the building, until he’s fully inside. 

Tall, large arches circle a stage a few feet taller than the dance floor, people already starting to fill its space. As the two boys walk further into the dance floor, the ceiling reveals its intricacies, with metal poles and rods connecting to the arches, a circular skylight in its center. It leaves Louis’ jaw dropped, having never seen something quite like this building, despite the show not even starting yet.

He almost loses Harry in the crowd, too busy staring up at the rafters to watch where he’s going.

“Alright, last time you did that, you nearly stepped on my dog,” Louis shoots him a look, and Harry laughs, “Let’s hurry so we can stand by the front of the stage,” He grabs hold of Louis’ wrist to pull him towards the stage. He takes this chance to look at what Harry’s wearing.

A black t-shirt, like Louis’, but with the same red lips and tongue logo as the posters outside on the front of the shirt, long black skinny jeans, despite him being the one to tell Louis to wear something loose and airy, and red chucks.

“What’s this logo?” Louis asks once they’ve reached a decent spot behind a group of short teenage girls, none of which looking older than eighteen, “I’m seeing it everywhere.”

Harry grabs the front of his shirt, looking down at it, “Oh, it’s called Hot Lips. It’s like, their logo, I guess. It’s from their album Sticky Fingers,” He moves into Louis’ space for a beat, allowing a guy to move past him, “They already released shirts with the logo, so I thought I would get one. I think I’ve heard somewhere it was based off Mick’s big mouth.”

Louis laughs, “I guess you two have got something in common.”

Harry chuckles, shoving Louis, “Shut up. The guy’s kind of hot, so. It’s kind of a compliment.”

Louis stops laughing, instead his eyes go wide and his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Harry realizes what he’s said and stops laughing, instead turning his head to the empty stage and away from Louis.

He doesn’t think it’s wrong that he called the guy hot. He’s just acknowledging the fact that he’s attractive, which anyone can do. It doesn’t mean anything. He watches the way Harry’s jaw clenches and unclenches, teeth grinding inside of his mouth, and thinks back to what his mum said in the kitchen yesterday. He wonders how she would’ve reacted if he said that in front of her. He doesn’t plan on finding out.

The venue floor fills up quickly, and soon enough the lights dim and five men step out on stage. The crowd roars, and Louis’ never heard so many people screaming at once. His eardrums pop at the sound, but he doesn’t mind, instead cheering along with Harry and everyone else. 

The screams die down as a guy in the center of the stage leans forward into the microphone, waiting to speak, and Louis can tell this one is Mick. He flicks his eyes from Harry, who’s standing beside him, smiling as wide as ever and whooping every now and then, and back to Mick, and can see the slight resemblance.

“Good evening, London.”

The crowd starts screaming once again and Louis wonders if this is going to follow after everything they say.

Another guy with a guitar strap around his chest leans into his own microphone, announcing, “We are The Rolling Stones.”

Louis leans into Harry’s space to ask, “Can you name all of them for me?”

Harry points at each of the men as he speaks their names into Louis’ ear, “Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts. There used to be a few others, but they left band.”

“Thank you,” Louis says, leaning away from him to tune back into what the guys are saying, repeating their names in his head as he looks over their features.

“Thank you all for coming tonight. We hope to put on a great show for you,” Keith glances at the rest of the band beside him, and continues, “We’re going to start this off with (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

“Alright!” Mick screams, and Brian starts with strumming his guitar, then Charlie starts hitting the drums in front of him in rhythm with the guitar. 

“I can’t get no, satisfaction,” He can see Harry mouthing the words beside him, but doesn’t make any noise, and Louis doesn’t know why that disappoints him, knowing the actual singer is a few feet in front of him.

It goes on like that as the band performs Let’s Spend the Night Together, Going Home, Sympathy for the Devil, Stupid Girl, Before They Make Me Run, and other songs Louis’ already forgotten the name of. (It’s not that he doesn’t like the songs- It’s just that they all have absurd names and it’s impossible to remember and also focus on the way Mick picks up the entire mic stand and walks so close to the end of the stage you can practically smell the cologne on his skin) But it’s not until they reach their final song that things take a turn for the interesting.

Brian picks up his sitar and Mick leans into the microphone once again, setting the legs of the stand on the floor, “Thank you,” He says, out of breath after running around the stage during Gimme Shelter, a song that undoubtedly gave Louis the chills, “We’d like to do,” He stops to smile at someone who yells something in the audience, “Paint It, Black.”

Louis reaches over to slap Harry’s arm repeatedly, saying, “One I know, finally!”

Harry laughs, grabbing Louis’ arm as well and digging his blunt nails into his skin, excited, “I fucking love this song.”

“I see a red door and I want it painted black,” Mick’s eyes scan the crowds, looking over the diverse faces of his fans, “No colors anymore, I want them to turn black.”

Harry is hopping in place and pumping his fists in the air, practically screaming along, “I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes, I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.”

He’s as riled up as anyone else and Louis doesn’t think anyone will notice if he starts dancing, too. He also hopes no one notices as he snakes his left arm around Harry’s waist, Harry’s right arm falling around his shoulders, both boys jumping and waving their hands at the same time.

“I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black,” They sing together, voices drowning out in the masses, “With flowers and my love, both never to come back.”

Mick picks up his stand and he’s moving again, well aware of the weight of everyone’s gaze on him. His presence is like a storm. Loud, powerful, and dangerous.

He moves towards the left of the stage, towards Harry and Louis’ section, and stops. His eyes are wandering, wandering, wandering, until they stop. Louis realizes they’ve stopped on the two of them.

Mick leans over to Keith after singing the line, “I look inside myself and see my heart is black,” In the seconds where the instruments are lone, he whispers into his ear. He pulls himself back to the mic, continuing, while looking over to Keith for his response, “I see my red door and must have it painted black.”

Keith nods, and Mick is back to looking at the crowd, back to looking at Louis and Harry. His arm extends, a single dainty finger pointed towards Harry, still singing. His full lips pull into a smirk as Harry points at himself, mouthing a bewildered, “Me?” Other people in the crowd notice this, turning around to look at Harry as well. The boys have stopped jumping, their eyes trained on Mick.

Mick nods to the beat of the music, “Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts,” He flips his hand so his palm is facing the sky, finger beginning to curl in on itself, slow, until it points at himself, in an unspoken, ‘Come here.’

Harry quickly puts a hand on the back of Louis’ head, gently pulling his head onto his shoulder in a sort of side-hug, Louis’ arm still wrapped around Harry’s waist. Harry pulls away, and then the heat once attached to Louis’ side is gone, instead passing through the crowd, to the stage. Louis leans on the tips of his toes to look over heads and watches as Harry lifts himself up onto the stage, t-shirt riding up his back. He fixes it as he stares, starstruck, at Mick. Louis wishes he had a camera, because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Mick wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulder, the smallest bit shorter than the boy, and pushes the head of the microphone so it’s between them. Mick sings a few lines alone, Harry frozen in place, until he finds himself and joins in, both voices melting through the speakers that sends the music filling every crack in the venue.

“If I look hard enough into the setting sun,” Harry finally turns his head from Mick to scan the crowd while singing, eyes landing on Louis’ face. The perfect circle that seemed permanent on his lips forms into a toothy grin, “My love will laugh with me before the morning comes.”

That’s when Louis realizes that not only does this boy constantly finds ways to surprise and enthrall him, but he’s also made for the stage. Mick can see it too, he knows it.

They sing the chorus, voices molding and melding together, arching and leaning to reach certain notes, Harry’s gaze only ever leaving Louis to look at Mick beside him, and the rest of the band. Then, they reach the outro, humming to the beat of the song.

“I wanna see it painted, painted black. Black as night, black as coal,” They scream, veins bulging from their necks, “I want to see the sun blotted out from the sky. I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black.”

They end it with a bang and Mick grips the back of Harry’s neck once they’re done, pulling his mouth to the shell of his ear, whispering something. Harry nods, smiling, cheeks bruising red, and shakes his hand, quickly going around the stage to shake all of the boys’ hands, and climbs off the stage. 

“Holy shit,” Harry says as soon as he finds Louis, the boys walking off the stage. He can see the wobble of Harry’s knees as they knock together, “Did you see that, Lou? Did that really just happen? Is this real life?”

Louis grins, mischievous, “I think it did,” He pinches his forearm, causing Harry to yelp and hold the reddening skin, “Just making sure.”

They go to move out of the venue, following the rest of the crowd, until Louis takes hold of Harry’s hand by wrapping his fingers around his thumb, and drags them elsewhere other than the entrance doors. Harry doesn’t have time to question it before they’re standing in front of a small merchandise stand with t-shirts, watches, sunglasses, wristbands, and everything else under the sun with The Rolling Stones’ logo or name.

“Hi,” Louis’ eyes scan the t-shirts hung up by hangers and hats piled on the tables. His eyes fall on a black wristband with multiple little Hot Lips on them, and says, “I’ll take one of those,” And points at a t-shirt that looks almost identical to Harry’s, but has the sleeves rolled up slightly, and the words ‘1978 TOUR’ written beneath the logo, “And that shirt,” He elbows Harry in the rib, who’s standing behind him, and says, “Pick something. And don’t say you don’t want anything or I’ll kick your ass because I know you’re lying.”

The worker raises an eyebrow, “I agree. Preferably the most expensive item, yeah?”

Louis shoots her a look, then looks back to Harry, “Whatever you want. I’ll pay for you,” Harry opens his mouth to say something, but Louis clamps his hand over it, “Don’t say anything. Just. Pick. Something.”

Harry licks his palm, but Louis doesn’t move it, nose scrunching in disgust. He points to a keyring and a wristband, and Louis sighs, figuring he would pick the smallest and cheapest items. He pays for it anyways, and they’re given a Roundhouse bag. 

Once they’re out of the building, people lingering around in little groups, smoking and talking, Harry says, “I saw a diner not too far from here. You feeling hungry?”

Louis nods, wanting to stretch out his time with Harry. They walk side by side in silence, Louis staring up at the stars that aren’t washed out by the town lights, and it sort of reminds him of his hill. 

“I can’t believe he picked me, out of the probably thousands of people in that room, to go up on stage with him! Can you believe that? I can’t. Please don’t pinch me again, though.”

Louis laughs, snapping his fingers and shaking his head, “Damn. That was my plan. I think it’s safe to say you’re obsessed- Ah!”

He is unable to form words after he’s suddenly lifted from the ground, Harry’s arms wrapping around his thighs and lifting him, twirling him in the air. His hands fall to Harry’s shoulders, struggling to balance himself and not tip over to the side.

“Sorry,” Harry says after setting him back on the ground, “I just felt like I needed to do that. Thank you for coming with me, by the way. This has got to be one of the best days of my life.”

Louis’ head retracts in confusion, “Why are you thanking me? I wasn’t the one that made Mick pick you.”

Harry shakes his head as they turn around the corner, light shining through diner windows a few blocks away, “Going up on stage or not, it wouldn't have been as memorable if you weren’t the one beside me. And, yeah, I did get to see my favorite band perform live, and sing with them, but the day wouldn’t have been as great if I were with someone else,” He looks down at Louis, eyes glistening in a post-concert high, smile brighter than the moon that douses the empty roads and their skin in ivory.

Louis can feel something awaken in his stomach, and he thinks it’s the butterflies just now breaking out of their cocoons. He isn’t sure if it’s dangerous for a boy, or anyone, to have this much power over him with just their words and smile. He can already feel the impending disaster.

“N-no. I don’t think me not being here would've made much of a difference,” Louis stutters, holding open the glass door so Harry can walk in. He watches the shake of his head as he passes by, but says nothing else.

They slide into a booth in the corner of the dead restaurant, across from each other. Louis picks up the menu and scans it. But he’s distracted as he watches over the top of his menu as Harry's gaze rise and fall on his own menu, eyes searchingly hungrily for the first thing that pops out to him. It distracts him from the emptiness in his stomach and the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything all day. 

“What are you getting?” Harry asks, setting his menu to the side.

“I- Uh... I dunno. Maybe I’ll just settle on a smoothie.”

“Did you eat breakfast this morning?”

Louis shakes his head, “Skipped it in favor of the park,” He sets his menu on top of Harry’s. 

“Did you eat anything today?”

Louis shakes his head again.

“I’m ordering you a Philly Cheese Steak. Whether I pay for it or you do, I’m going to watch you eat every last bite of it.”

“But I’m not-”

“Bullshit. Your stomach wouldn’t stop growling while you were sleeping the whole car ride over here,” Harry laughs, running a hand through his hair. 

Louis can feel his cheeks burn. They always seem to do that when he's around Harry. “That’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not. It’s a normal bodily sound we can’t control. Occurs in the best of us.”

“Did I snore?”

“A little bit,” Louis throws his head back against the seat, irked with his unconscious self, “But it’s alright. Wasn’t loud at all. It was kind of ador- Uh,” Lines form on his forehead, “Can I see the bag real quick?”

Louis nods, picking up the bag from beside him on the seat and sliding it over the table. Harry reaches a hand in and rummages around until he pulls out the keyring. He breaks the tag off and feels around in his pocket, pulling out his keychain. Louis notices that there’s a picture held by one of the keyrings of Bob and a guy Louis’ never seen before.

“Who’s that,” Louis’ asks nonchalantly, expecting it to not be a big deal that he points it out.

But apparently it’s a very big deal, considering the way Harry instantly retracts the keychain under the table and out of Louis’ sight.

“I- Uh,” He looks at his lap, then back at Louis, then down to his lap again. He huffs out a sigh, and answers his question with a question. 

“What is your opinion on...” He shakes his head, and Louis can practically hear the internal conflict, “Like. Gay rights?”

Well, wow, okay. Louis wasn’t expecting that to be the first thing out of Harry’s mouth, but. 

“Well,” He starts, simple, “I think everyone’s equal under God’s eyes. Everyone deserves equal rights, including those who like their own sex. And that we shouldn’t spend as much time as we are deciding on whether or not these people deserve to be treated as human as you and I. I think love is... love. Love is profound and deserves to be... celebrated. Yeah. And I know it’s a really controversial point of view, but I stick with it.” He’s reluctant to say it, given it’s looked down upon by everyone he knows, but it’s the truth. It’s all true. Even if others don’t agree.

“Okay. Good. I like the way you think,” Harry knocks his knuckles against the wood of the table, “And how do you think you would react if someone close to you... came out- Said they were gay?”

Louis’ eyebrows furrow, “What does this have to do with-”

“Please, just, answer the question. Please,” And this is the most serious Louis’ ever seen him, probably the most frightened, too. So he doesn’t question it any further, and does as asked.

“I would accept them. Yeah, I’d be scared for them, since I know others won’t be as accepting. They’d be the opposite, really. But... I’d want them to embrace their sexuality.”

“Good,” Harry breathes, relief filling his body and posture, going from rigid and fidgety to sitting back in his chair and looking like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

A waitress comes and takes their orders. Louis lets Harry order for the both of them, and she takes up their menus, leaving them to their conversation.

“And I’m only saying this because I trust you,” Harry laughs humorlessly, staring out the window into the near pitch black of outside, “I know that’s crazy to say, after only knowing you for... almost two days. It’s really crazy, actually. But I do, and I hope that doesn’t freak you out. But, um. I’ve only ever told my sister this, and I’ve known her since, like, I was out of the womb, so.”

He pauses for a long time, and Louis’ unsure if Harry even remembers he’s in the middle of saying something, when, “That guy you saw on the keyring, with Bob, was my ex-boyfriend.”

His jaw doesn’t drop, his eyes don’t go wide, he doesn’t start screaming, he doesn’t start throwing things, he doesn’t start insulting Harry, he doesn’t up and leave. It’s evident that this comes as a surprise to Harry, given the way the way his wince while saying the words dissipates into his mouth pulling into a taut line.

“You’re not mad?”

Louis shakes his head, looking into the eyes of a boy that’s probably been through so much more than Louis can ever imagine, “Of course not. My opinion of you won’t change because of who you love. That was never any of my business, and knowing it now doesn’t change anything. But I’m glad you decided to tell me. It makes me happy you trust me enough to tell me. But- Uh. Do you know if you’re like, gay, or bi, or questioning, or what?”

“Oh, no- Yeah,” Harry stumbles, a smile growing on his face, like the first ray of sunlight to break through the clouds after days of raining, and Louis takes pride in the fact that he caused that, “I’m gay.”

“And, so, your ex-boyfriend? Can you tell me about him? Or is that, like, a touchy subject? I don’t mean to push you into anything you don’t want to talk-”

“Oh, no. It’s alright. Nick was, well. A secret I hid from my parents, and, obviously, very well-hid. I met him... maybe two years ago. We were together for those two years, and I broke up with him as soon as I moved here, a few days ago. So, yeah, it was a long relationship.”

Louis laughs, “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but, you don’t look very... distressed about it.”

“Well, I was head over heels, ready to take the bullet, so, so fucking in love with him. God, it was terrible, how hard I fell for that guy. But over the course of the two years... he changed. And there was a reason I fell for him at the start. He was everything I wasn’t. They say, you find your opposite, and they complete you. But I guess, with the way things have turned out, that wasn’t the case for us. He was charming, funny, romantic, a gentleman, a thrill-seeker. He put excitement in my dull life, and I guess that was one of the reasons why I found him so compulsive. I was, like, the Christian schoolgirl with a crush on the bad boy. And he was an enigma in my little, innocent world. He was like my dirty little secret, and I loved that. I loved doing shit behind my parent’s backs that I knew if they found out, I’d be fucked forever. And as I loved him, he loved me back. I think. At least, that’s what he told me. He held my hand under a jacket when we went out to see movies, threw rocks at my window at the dead of night and sneaked into my room to hold me as I slept, waited for me until I was ready to have sex with him. It was great. I felt like I was living in my own little gay Disney princess movie. I was the gay Cinderella,” They laugh at that, lightening the mood a bit, before a waitress comes to serve them their food. Louis eats as Harry continues on.

“But, as all things that are good do, it ended. The relationship didn’t end, not then, but it stopped being healthy. And it should’ve been a sign for me to end it before it got worse. But I was too lovesick to even think about that, so I didn’t. So I just watched it all fall apart in front of me,” Harry sighs, running his nails through the grooves of the table, “His home situation got worse. His dad went to jail, his mum started drinking and becoming violent, bringing more men home. He started coming over to my house more, and it got even riskier to hide him. I tried to talk to him about it, but he just pushed me away and we fought more. It wasn’t too long after we really started arguing a lot, that I found out was cheating on me. He begged me- like full on pleading, knees in the gravel, hands pressed together- to forgive him and pursued me for the week that I tried to forget about him. But, for some reason, I gave in and let him back in again,” Harry shakes his head, looking at Louis, “I sound like such an idiot, don’t I?”

Louis shakes his head, “No. I would’ve done the same. I don’t blame you. You were too young to know the right thing to do.”

Harry shrugs, “I guess. But, um, it wasn’t the only time he cheated on me. It was sort of like clockwork. I would find out or he would confess, I would try and forget about him, and he’d promise it would be the last time. And, God, I was so stupid. I let him back in every time. And somewhere along the lines, I stopped loving him. This was, maybe, two months before I moved back here. I stopped caring about when he would tell me he cheated, or when I caught him mid-thrust in some random bloke’s asshole. I became desensitized to it. We forgot about what made a monogamous relationship, a monogamous relationship, and stopped being exclusive to each other. He took me to the pound and helped me adopt a dog, Bob, and Bob was probably more obsessed with him than I was. But, yeah. We fell out of love, and it was too fucked up to fix. It was like trying to put a decapitated head on a neck and try to make it fully functioning again," Louis wrinkles his nose, and Harry laughs, "Sorry, that was kind of a disgusting analogy. But, you get my point.”

“And I guess, as I stopped loving him, I started loving myself. I started realizing that I wasn’t treating myself right with moping over this guy who wasn’t loving me the way I was loving him. And, for some reason, I knew there was someone out there better for me, sort of like a sixth sense. Someone I could make feel butterflies in their stomach just from the way I smile and talk or just from the mention of my name. Someone who I could talk to for hours and never get tired of their voice. Someone I found beautiful and could stare at for days on end and would prefer over the Himalayas or Northern Lights, as cheesy as it sounds. Someone who could make the most boring activities exciting. Someone who makes me laugh until my stomach hurts. And I want someone who can also do all of that for me. I want someone who’s just as crazy about me as I am about them.”

Louis then realizes that throughout the entire story, he was propping his head up with his head up, mouth slightly agape, leaning forward and nodding along with everything Harry’s just said. And Louis is the most oblivious person, but he’s not oblivious to not realize that Harry makes him feel butterflies from the way he talks and smiles, he could stare at him for days on end and wouldn’t trade the sight for the world, can make his boring summer days exciting.

“But,” Harry leans forward, sipping his milkshake through its straw, until his lips come off with a pop, “I don’t think there’s anyone out there that fits that description. Hell, they could be right in front of me, but I wouldn’t notice. I’m oblivious,” He laughs, taking a bite into his burger, looking content, “I’m asking too much with all of that and its specificity. I’m just a hopeless romantic, I guess. It’s impossible for anyone to find someone who is everything they want. And... I’m happy. Happy with how everything is now, and that’s all that matters.”

He lifts up the keychain to the light, metal jingling resonating in the emptying diner, “I’ll probably just burn this.”

They continue to eat their food in a comfortable silence, Louis thinking over everything Harry’s just said, and Harry relishing in the fact that he’s just revealed his darkest secret to someone new without being chastised and dehumanized. It’s a quiet car ride home, filled with the soothing rumble of slower Rolling Stones songs Louis had yet to hear. After he drops Louis off at his house with a side-hug goodbye and a promise of see you later, he drops his head on his pillow.

Among many other realizations that day- realizing how enthralling and endearing Harry is, what good of a voice he has, and just how much of a polar opposite he is to Louis’ initial assumption - He also realizes that even if it has the potential to be lethal, and everyone he knows is against it, Louis starts to take his own words to heart, using it to unlock something within himself. Acceptance for who I am, he thinks.

And maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with Harry.  
~

It’s the first rainfall of the summer, and Louis thinks it’s befitting for his mood.

He looks away from the window to see Liam and Zayn sliding into the opposite end of the booth, across the table from Louis.

“Hey, Lou,” Liam greets, settling into his seat, he glances out the window as well, watching the rain hit the glass harder. Zayn wipes water from his leather jacket as Liam laughs, “Glad we got in before it got worse. Is Niall still coming?”

Louis nods silently. Liam looks at the empty booth beside him, “Is your friend Harvey coming?”

“It’s Hansel,” Zayn nudges Liam gently with his elbow, slipping off his jacket and placing it beside him on the seat.

“It’s Harry, and no. He’s not coming.”

“Oh,” Liam pouts, “I was kind of looking forward to meeting him. Is he ill?”

Louis shrugs, “I haven’t talked to him since the concert.”

“Is that why you’re looking a bit... sad?”

Louis shrugs again, but all three of them know the answer. He practically talked all of their ears off, Niall’s included, the day after the concert, going on and on about how fun it was and how Harry was so funny and kind and goofy and how excited he was to introduce him to the boys. But now, here he sits, in a dingy diner with three of its light-bulbs blown out, having not heard from him since. Louis’ given up on waiting, and settled for the conclusion that despite everything Harry’s said, and how honest-to-God he sounded, he probably thought that he wouldn’t have to hang out with boring, old Louis anymore since the expensive concert was already done with and his parents wouldn’t force them together anymore with stupid dinner parties that go wrong and concerts that go right.

He’s come to the harsh reality that Harry doesn’t want to make the effort to drop by or call because he doesn’t want to see him, even if that’s not the case for Louis. The opposite, actually. He knows he shouldn’t waste time dwelling on and missing people whose minds he doesn’t even cross, but he does it anyway, and it hurts. Hurts more than it should for a boy he’s talked to for two days and couldn’t get enough of.

“Hey, lads,” Niall says, closing his umbrella as soon as he reaches the end of their table, grinning playfully, “It’s fuckin’ storming out there. Couldn’t have picked a worse day, huh, Tommo?”

Louis manages a small smile, not quite looking Niall in the eye, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Kind of nice to hear the rain in the morning, though. Shut those damn birds up for the first time this summer.”

“So, um. How have you guys been recently? Sorry it’s been radio silence from me, lately. I’ve kind of been feeling a bit... sick,” Louis lies. He’s been glued next to the phone on his bedside table, waiting for that call to come.

“We’ve been doing good, Louis, but...” Niall trails off, looking at the glum boy replacement of his best friend, “What’s wrong? We’re here for you, you know. And we can tell something’s off.”

Louis sighs. Of course they see right through it- They’ve known him for half of his life.

“You know the guy I’ve been talking about, Harry, right? The one that took me to a concert a week ago?”

The boys nod in unison, saying nothing to leave the air open for Louis.

“Well- Um. I guess he didn’t really... Enjoy it? As much as I did, I guess. Or he doesn’t like me, or I’m boring or something- I don’t know, honestly. But I’ve given him my number, he knows where I live, I’ve been kind of wanting to talk to him for a while, because,” He chooses his words carefully, because the wrong string of sentences can leave him tumbling down an endless mountain, “He. I don’t know. It was fun talking to him. I knew you guys would like him, he’s got that sort of... Electric personality. And I wanted to hang out with him again, but apparently the feeling wasn't mutual, because it’s been a week and I haven’t seen him since. So, I guess it was some sort of false face at the concert. He didn’t really enjoy me being there- I don’t know,” He suddenly feels uncomfortable under the boys’ eyes, so he closes in on himself, “I’m rambling, lads. I’m sorry. I’m probably not making any sense.”

Zayn shakes his head, setting a hand on the table, voice understanding, “You are. We get it. You think he didn’t really mean it when he said he enjoyed spending the concert with you-”

“-And the wanker pretended, just to ignore you afterwards-” Niall interjects.

“-Yeah. But, y’know, Lou. He’s missing out. You’re brilliant, funny, a dickhead, sometimes, but- He doesn’t deserve your time. If he’s going to fake around, you don’t need to bother yourself with him.”

As Louis feels himself begin to loosen up, he hears diner bell chimes, and the dying diner suddenly becomes livelier as a group of people around the boys’ age steps in, finding a booth. 

And, since the beings above love to hate Louis, the person who comes trailing in after the group, looking almost detached, is none other than Harry. 

He inhales a sharp breath, facing forward and away from the incoming group, and slides himself further in his seat until half of him is under the table. He would rather be swallowed up whole by the ground than have Harry know he's here.

“Hey, isn’t that-” Zayn starts, but Louis shushes him.

“No. I don’t want him to know I’m here,” He’s thankful for the boys’ ability to take a hint. Harry walks past the table, eyes set forward. He slides into a booth across the restaurant, facing Louis, but doesn’t look in his direction, so he releases a sigh of relief.

A waitress comes along and they order milkshakes, Liam and Zayn settling on sharing an order of fries. 

“Have you watched Grease yet, Niall?” Liam asks, and it seems like everything anything could say could lead Louis right back to thinking about Harry, who’s currently talking across his booth to a guy with a green varsity jacket. Louis wonders if he likes him. He doesn’t know why he cares.

“Everyone’s talking about it. Barbara’s seen it and told me she didn’t like. Said people were exaggerating it too much and it set the bar too high,” Niall talks, but Louis doesn’t listen.

He’s too busy looking at Harry. Harry, who stares at his table like his mind is wandering, like he’s not here right now. Harry, who’s still wearing the Rolling Stones wristband Louis bought him a week ago. Harry, who’s entered his life a mere week ago and stepped out of it a mere week ago and still lives in Louis’ every thought, every breath, every decision and every step. Harry, who’s making the dreams of the boy on the hill more vivid and confusing and frequent. 

Harry, who’s eyes go from the table to Louis’ so quickly it gives him heart palpitations. Louis can’t read him, his face is stone, but it doesn’t make him look away. Harry’s the first to break it, standing up from the table and walking towards the men’s bathroom. 

Liam, Zayn, and Niall are talking about movie trailers they’ve seen in theaters, but Louis can’t bother to join it. He just wants to know where Harry’s head is at.

And, apparently, Harry does too. Because as soon as he’s out of the bathroom, he walks past his own table, and towards Louis’.

“Uh, Hi, guys.”

All heads look up to Harry, who’s hands are clutched behind his back and standing at the end of the table, glancing around at each of the boys. He waves at Zayn and shakes Liam and Niall’s hands, introducing himself, though Louis’ probably told them enough about him to write a biography.

“You guys having a good night?”

They all nod, but Louis knows it’s just small talk. 

“Can, um. Can I steal you away for a moment, Louis?” He bites his lip, shifting his gaze from the other boys to land on him. 

Louis nods, quiet, and stands on the seat, stepping over Niall and leaving the booth. Luckily, the rain has died down to a drizzle by this point, and the roof extends far enough that a few feet of space in front of the walls of the diner are covered and dry. They stand under it for a few minutes, and Louis’ getting frustrated. Louis thinks, 'You drag me out here in the rain and continue to leave me in the dark on why you ignored my existence after giving me one of the most memorable nights in my life. Why can’t I bring myself to loathe you right now?'

Louis wishes he could be mad at the boy in front of him, but he’s never been good at holding grudges.

As soon as he’s about to walk right back into the diner after seeing their milkshakes being served, Harry turns to him, and says, “How have you been?”

Louis narrows his eyes at the ground, “I dunno. Good, I guess,” If he can’t fully ignore him, he can at least be callous.

“That’s- That’s good to hear, yeah,” Harry huffs, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, “Um. Are you mad at me?”

Louis looks at him, confused, “Why? What did you do?”

Harry shrugs, “I don’t know. I thought you might have thought I was clingy.”

It does nothing to ease Louis’ confusion, but instead worsens it, “Clingy? What?”

Harry nods, “I spent a lot of time around you, those two days. Your house, the theater, the park, driving to the concert, the concert itself, the diner. Also, I unloaded all of that stuff on you that night, after the concert. When I got home, I was thinking that you probably thought I was fucking insane. I shouldn’t have told you that the day after meeting you, and I’m sorry. And I wanted to give you some time to breath, and wanted to let you make the first move to maybe call me back or something. I don’t know- It was stupid.”

“I was waiting for you to call me, or come to my house. I could never think you’re clingy. You’re pretty modest, thinking I don’t want to do things with you, or I’m doing it against my will. I’m the one who gave you my phone number, and I don’t know where you live, so you not calling me or stopping by kind of made me think you were tired of me.”

Harry shakes his head, fast, “No, of course, never,” Harry looks down at his shoes, biting down on his lip to hide something Louis hopes is a smile, “But don’t you think it’s kind of hypocritical for you to think I’m modest for thinking you wouldn’t want to be around me, but proceed to believe that I don’t want you to be around?”

Louis tries to wrap his head around his sentence, but alas, “Okay, Styles. I didn’t come out here to rack my brain on your questions about my thought process,” Harry laughs, and Louis cracks his first genuine smile in days, “There’s a reason I’m going to a community college.”

Harry points an accusing finger, “There! You’re being a hypocrite again. Stop thinking so low of yourself.”

Louis waves him off, stomach bubbling with something Louis knows he can’t fight, “Yeah, yeah. Who’re those people you came in with?”

Harry looks behind them to peer in through the glass at his table, whose occupants look like they don’t even notice Harry’s gone. Louis already knows he doesn’t like them. “Oh, them. They’re a few people that live in my neighborhood. My mum caught wind of some of them coming to this diner, and she told me to go with them, since she didn’t want me, ‘brooding around the house’ anymore. Her words, not mine. Truth is, I don’t really care for them. They’re too rowdy for me. Snotty, too.”

As messed up as it is, Louis takes solace in learning that Harry was sulking around, too. It’s only fair, really.

“You coming to the football game tomorrow? It’s Doncaster versus Leeds.”

Harry shakes his head, “As much as I hate portraying the gay male stereotype, I don’t like sports much. They’re fun to play, but hell to watch. But- Are you going?”

Not anymore, he thinks.

“Nah, I was just planning on staying home. My parents are going, and the boys are, too.”

Harry’s eyebrows rise, and then, quickly, “Oh! I think my parents and Jenna are going along, too. Probably the entire town, actually. Do you maybe want to... hang out? At my house?”

Louis was hoping he’d offer, and not have to embarrass himself by proposing the idea himself. “Yeah, sure. But just so you know, I’m going primarily to see Bob. You’re just an added bonus.”

Harry laughs, “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Tommo.”

It’s silent for a moment afterwards, the both of them just shuffling around on their own two feet, not making eye-contact, smiling at the ground or at the sky or at the wall, anywhere but each other. It’s all Louis ever seems to do around Harry, smile and laugh, smile and laugh. But at least it’s always genuine.

“So, uh. I suppose I should let you get back to your friends,” Harry mutters, glancing into the window to see Liam, Niall, and Zayn looking away frantically from the two boys as soon as they’re noticed.

“Are you not going back to yours?”

Harry shakes his head, “I’d rather be asleep than talk to those people. I guess I’ll just go home now. I’ll see you tomorrow-”

“You can stay with me and the boys,” Louis blurts as Harry begins to turn away. Louis isn’t about to let him walk away yet, “If you want to.”

Harry smirks, “Only if they’re okay-”

“Don’t be daft. Come on, they’ll love you.”

For the rest of the night, Louis sits between Harry and Niall, with Zayn and Liam across the table from them. And Louis can’t help but feel a little proud that Harry fits in so well with his best friends.  
~

Louis doesn’t know why he finds it so nerve-wracking when he stands outside of Harry’s house. The house in itself isn’t intimidating- It’s comforting, even. It looks like your standard two-story house in the suburbs, flower shrubs under the first floor windows, roses and dandelions and other flowers Louis can’t name dot the front lawn, the house in itself painted in a scheme of red bricks, white boards, and baby blue garage. There’s nothing threatening about this house.

Still, it doesn’t help the low feeling of unease in his stomach. Their driveway is empty, so either the family’s Aston Martin is inside of their garage, or they’re all gone, except for Harry. 

As he walks up the winding concrete path, grass and flowers alike sticking from between cracks, like splatters of paint, smudged and clashing against a bleak canvas. He looks up from the intricate beauty in something that probably would be ignored by anyone else, to find the blinds behind the front windows moving. The paneled door opens before Louis can even knock, flinging open to unveil a beaming Harry.

“Hi!”

Louis finds himself smiling, the butterflies in his tummy intensifying their rave, “Hi, Harry. Is your family home?”

He steps aside, allowing Louis to enter, “No, sorry. They’ve just left.”

He feels a sense of relief. It’s rude, but he was hoping he wouldn’t see them. They aren’t scary per se, but then again, they’re daunting. He can see what they have in common with their house.

“That’s alright,” He glances around the living room. It’s open plan, connecting with the kitchen and dining room. It’s like the picturesque family home he always sees in home remodeling magazines, two yellow cotton couches that face a small television in the corner, a white coffee table with books and candles, and a record player pushed against the wall a few inches beside the television. A kitchen with redwood cabinets and matching fridge, and miscellaneous paintings for decoration fill the otherwise empty walls. But the thing that catches his eye the most is a large window to the left of the kitchen that overlooks a garden in the backyard, color-popping flowers like poppies, lilies, orchids, frangipanis, and cosmos, as well as rows of strawberry bushes, carrots, and red apple trees, all line the yard in neat rows. There’s also a wooden arch with flowers that vine around it.

It’s steals a breath from Louis as he walks towards the window, careful not to press his fingers against the glass in case he leaves prints. Harry trails behind him, Louis can see from his reflection in the glass. 

“The couple who last owned this house grew those. My mum plans to maintain it, but I don’t even think she knows how to plant seeds properly.”

“And you do?”

Louis stares at Harry’s reflection in the mirror and can see the way he’s biting his bottom lip, eyes wandering the garden, “I do, actually. I used to have a garden in our backyard in Holmes Chapel. It wasn’t quite as...” He raises his hands, waving them around, bringing his voice to the same mocking posh he did at the dog park a week ago, “Grand and exquisite, as this,” His voice is back to its typical fruity, “But it was mine. And I loved it. My mum didn’t, though. Which is why she doesn’t want me caring for this one either. She wants me to get into more ‘virile’ hobbies.”

Louis frowns, turning his head to see Harry’s blank side-profile, “But you’re not going to do that, right? You should keep gardening, if it’s what makes you happy.”

Harry shrugs, “I don’t know,” Is all he says. Louis purses his lips, turning back to the window before Harry continues by changing the subject, “Do you want a tour?”

Louis nods, and follows behind Harry as they walk through a short corridor, given Louis’ seen all he can in the main room, “There’s nothing much in here,” He opens each door as he explains what it is, allowing Louis to peak his head in for a glance, “This is the first bathroom, out of two,” He opens the first door on the right, then the one across from it, “Laundry room and garage, minus our car, of course,” Then the door at the very end of the hallway, without opening the door, “My father’s study room. He’s a lawyer, so he spends a lot of time in here. It’s always locked, since he doesn’t want anyone going in here,” He tries the doorknob, just to prove that it is, in fact, locked.

They return into the main room and walk up the staircase. They reach the second floor and it’s another hallway, but less narrow, with picture frames hanging on its walls. The first door on the left being his parents room, the room across from it the second bathroom, then Jenna’s room. Finally, the very last door, is Harry’s.

“The best room in the house,” He says, opening it to reveal a- No, not an ordinary teenage boy’s room. It’s practically spotless, with two bookshelves filled to the brim on the right wall, a desk with even more books below a window that overlooks the front of the house and the rest of the neighborhood, a neatly made single-bed in the left corner, a door that Louis guesses leads to his closet, and yet another record player beside the door, vinyls in their covers stacked on the ground alongside it. 

“Why am I surprised your room is literally nothing but a big book?” He walks up to one of the bookshelves, pulling off the first hardback he sees, called The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. He flits open to a random page discussing Sibyl Vane’s suicide. His nose wrinkles in disgust spawned at the hands of big words, setting it back in its spot as he hears the door shut.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Harry apologizes, pulling it open again, “I don’t know why I did that. I guess it’s sort of routine. Y’know, with the whole hiding my ex-boyfriend’s existence from my parents,” He smiles, “At least I don’t have to hide you.”

Louis steps away from the bookshelf, taking the five steps from one side of the room to the other, smiling to himself, “It’s okay. I don’t mind,” He turns to look through the vinyls. Aftermath, Revolver, Pet Sounds, Abbey Road, David Bowie, and a few other albums Louis has never heard of.

But, on the very bottom of the stack, sits a pink, slightly dusty vinyl cover that reads, Sweet Adeline (You're the Flower Of My Heart) by Haydn Quartet, a frail looking woman in a dress, sitting on a branch below the title. His eyebrows knit together.

“Hey...” He calls for Harry’s attention, who’s busy rearranging the already perfectly aligned books on the desk, “Can- Um. Can we play this one?”

Harry looks over his shoulder and at the ground, where the lone cover sits on the carpet. His eyes widen, and then he’s picking it up, “I haven’t played this one in forever,” He slips it out of the case, the black disk falling out and into his hand. He places it in the middle of the record player, and presses the play button, setting the needle on the vinyl. He sits on his bed, the mattress dipping under his weight.

In the first second, goosebumps run over Louis’ arms, nostalgia running through his veins, even if it’s just a bunch of crackling. In the next second, a gentle string quartet begins.

“In the evening when I sit alone a-dreaming,” The four men that comprised of Haydn Quartet sing hauntingly, Harry jumping in with his own falsetto for the next line, softly enough that the song itself is still audible, “Of days gone by, love, to me so dear.”

Louis’ mesmerized by his voice, only adding to the nostalgia of singing along to the song when he was a little boy. He finds himself singing a few lines later, eyes closed, head falling back against the bookshelf, “It is then I wonder where you are, my darling, and if your heart to me is still the same.”

Harry looks at him for the first time since the song began, gazing at the boy in front of him, who’s leaning against the bookcase, voice dulcet. He can barely focus on the song itself, but who would, if something so beautiful were sitting just inches away, singing just above a whisper.

It’s impossible to rip his eyes away, so he doesn’t. He watches Louis’ lips curl to shape the words and breathe them out, mouth opening to fill his lungs with each charged lyric, mouth closing to exhale them. His right hand finds a place over his heart, left gripping the shelf behind him, as if it were an anchor to remind him he’s still here in this room with Harry. Though that obviously doesn’t help, given he looks thousands of miles away, lost in a world unknown. Harry doesn’t mind, though. It’s enchanting to watch Louis wander the depths of himself. 

Louis doesn’t even realize he’s being watched until the song is nearly over, opening his eyes when Harry brings himself back to sing, “If we must meet sometime in after years, my darling, I trust that I will find your love still mine.”

They stare at each other as they sing, mouths forming the words without really thinking about it, and Louis wonders if it’s possible to feel like you’re drowning from simply looking at another person.

The song finishes, and it feels like they’re plunged into darkness when the silence returns. But they don’t rip their eyes away, no. Not for a long time.

“You can sing,” Harry breathes, more of a fact than an inquiry. 

“I didn’t know you knew this song.”

“Same goes for you.”

“I, um,” Louis is the first to rip his eyes away and isn’t sure why he regrets it, “I did, when I was little. I would listen to the vinyl all the time, back when we had a record player. I guess... I lost it, or something.”

Harry nods, “I don’t really remember where I got my vinyl from, it sort of just... Appeared, one day, in my attic in Cheshire. And I started listening to it- But, um, Bob’s in the backyard. Do you want to go see him?”

Louis nods, thankful to have an excuse to leave this room where the air starts to feel thin. He thinks Harry feels the same way.

They walk downstairs in silence, and Louis knows he needs to get out of this house, because the air is thinning out everywhere inside, thoughts and ‘what-if’s creeping from the plagues of his mind, wringing around his neck and choking the breath out of him. Harry reaches the glass door leading to the backyard first, unlocking it and pulling it open. Louis steps through it and feels the evening summer sun on his skin once again, more thankful than ever to be outside. 

Harry leads them through the twisting cobblestone, flowers and greenery as far as the eye can see, until they walk behind a small fig tree, and Louis spots an exact replica of Harry’s house on a smaller scale.

“Let me guess,” Louis says, already acquainted with the fact that he will never let this go, “You were the one who thought it was a good idea to get a doghouse that looks exactly like your house?”

Harry smiles, looking down as he walks, “What can I say? I’m a genius.”

Louis shakes his head, “I’m not even sure why I’m surprised. I should’ve already expected you to do something as arbitrary as build your dog a model of your own house, Harold.” He surprises even himself with the nickname, but doesn’t take it back.

Bob steps out from his doghouse at the sounds of their voices, and comes barreling across the grass like a bullet. Louis kneels down, unaware that Bob was going to jump into him instead of stopping in front of him.

He’s knocked onto his back with white fur crawling all over him, licking his skin and stepping with sharp nails that stab, but Louis doesn’t have the heart to deny the dog (Or himself, frankly) the chance of showing affection.

Harry gets on his knees beside Louis’ body, running his fingers down the dog’s floppy ears, “I guess a week of being Louis-deprived hasn’t been good for you, huh, buddy?”

Louis smiles, “Do you guys let him in your house?” 

Harry shrugs, “Sometimes. When it’s not raining or too hot or cold, we leave him outside because he has more room to run around. He doesn’t like smaller spaces.”

He gets up when Bob finally gets off him, running back and forth across the garden. He runs back to Louis and stands in front of him, barking. Louis takes a step forward, and he’s off again. Louis starts running after him.

“Are you actually running after my dog?” Harry cups his hands around his mouth and yells, laughing as he watches as Louis corners Bob into the corner of the fence. Louis splits his legs farther, wondering if Bob would try to run between his legs. He does, and it’s such a small squeeze that his fur brushes between Louis’ thighs, who’s wearing the same denim shorts from the concert that reaches just above his knees. He yelps and turns around, darting towards the little blur.

Soon enough, Harry joins and both boys are chasing after Bob, who seems to have a never-ending stamina. They formulate plans of cornering, ambushing, and flanking him, anything, as if they were battling in war. Nothing ever worked, they could never outsmart the dog. Twenty minutes later, Harry finally fell to the ground in exhaustion, Louis following suit. 

“That’s the most I’ve worked out in years,” Harry mutters, keeping his eyes shut so he wouldn’t stare into the sun’s rays.

“Can we go inside? And bring Bob?” 

Harry nods, and Louis gets up a few minutes later. His legs still feel numb after all the running he did, but he manages to get back into the house, Bob nipping at his heels. He leaves it open for when Harry wants to come back in and collapses into the nearest couch, falling back against its cushions. 

He closes his eyes, only for a second. But a second turns into a minute and a minute turns into an hour and an hour into two.

When he comes to, he’s facing the television, which is on now and playing Doctor Who. Looking down at himself, he notices a green cotton blanket draped over his body. He glances at the other couch and finds it to be empty, presuming Harry to be elsewhere. He yawns and stretches, feeling his knuckles brushing against something. That something retracts itself from his touch, letting out a giggle. 

Louis sits up quickly, the blanket falling to pool on his legs, and looks over his shoulder to see Harry, sitting beside his head. He’s holding his ribs, still laughing.

“Why did you laugh?” Louis says, feeling a smile of his own grow.

“I’m ticklish...” He sees the genuine smile of Louis’ shift to mischief and knows he’s made a terrible mistake, “I’m just kidding.”

Louis juts his fingers out to wriggle against Harry’s sides again, just in case. He shrieks in response, falling back on the couch and away from yearning hands, dissolving into a laughing mess. Louis crawls across the couch and sits astride Harry’s thighs, running his fingers over his ribs, neck, navel, and anywhere else Louis can find that makes Harry red in the face.

“I’m going to-o,” He squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to grab Louis’ wrists, “Throw you off this- Ha! Couch! If you don’t stop, Louis T-Tomlinson!” 

Louis’ never been one to listen, so he continues to touch every inch of skin he can see until Harry does exactly as promised, hooking his feet under Louis’ shins, grabbing his wrists, and tosses him to the side. He doesn’t quite throw Louis hard enough that it hurts, but not soft enough that Louis doesn’t fall with a thud. The couch is only a few inches off the ground, and the floor is carpeted, so he knows Louis won’t be seriously injured, unless he’s faking it. 

He glances over the edge of the cushion to the floor, where Louis lays still, beaming up at Harry, huffing out breaths, “Looks like you don’t kid around when it comes to tickling .”

“I’m in it to win it, darling,” Harry laughs as he juts his own hand out, brushing each twisting finger towards Louis’ skin. Louis laughs and squirms away. Harry finds this to be the most fascinating of discoveries. 

“Do you know what happens when two people are both extremely immature and ticklish?”

“What happens?”

“They fight it out,” Harry rolls off the couch and onto the ground, placing his knees on either side of Louis’ waist, stroking every spot that Harry knows makes him laugh the most on his own body. Louis does the same, and soon enough they’re two grown men who are practically groping each other on Harry’s living room floor, flushed from both being breathless and how their current positions are quite suggestive. Bob runs in a few seconds later, hopping on the couch and trying to squeeze himself in between the boys who are too caught up in each other to notice.

But what they do notice is the growing lights that stretch out across the walls from outside the window that suddenly go out, returning the room into its semi-darkness only lit up by the last rays of sun and television screen. A car door slams outside.

“Did you hear that?” Harry says, pausing his hands on Louis’ collarbones. They both glance out the window ever so slowly, like the painstakingly slow way the fingers of a character in a horror film pull back the curtains to reveal what’s making that tapping sound.

“Shit,” Louis mutters as Harry gets off of him, the slide and unlock of the front door alarming enough for the boys to crawl back onto the couch and resume a stance that won’t make Harry’s sister and parents suspicious of them doing something else. Not that their continued heavy breathing isn’t evidence enough.

“Hello, Har- Oh,” His mum stops once her eyes land on Louis. She smiles, “I didn’t know you were stopping by, Louis, hello! Would you like to stay over for dinner?”

Louis’ eyes nearly pop out of his skull, “Oh, I would love to, but-”

Harry reaches below the couch, to where their lower bodies are obscured from his family’s prying eyes, and pinches Louis’ thigh.

“Shi- Of course! Thank you,” He offers her a smile back, very obviously pained. She doesn’t notice, though, and walks up the winding staircase. As soon as Louis has waved to Harry’s father as well, Jenna walks into the house and closes the door behind her. She closes the door behind her and smirks at them.

“Why are you two sweating and breathing like that?”

Louis’ eyes go wide, opening his mouth to answer before Harry speaks first, lowering his voice, “Not what you think, Jen. We’re not like that. It was a tickle fight, that’s all.”

She raises an eyebrow at them, but takes it anyway, turning away to the staircase, “Alright. Whatever you say, weirdos.”

Louis plays with one of the pillows on the couch and once she’s gone, says, “Your sister doesn’t think I... like guys, right?”

Harry shakes his head, “No. She wouldn’t assume something like that. But if you do, it’s none of our business.”

Louis nods, and looks at the depression in the couch beside him, finding Bob to be curling in on himself. He smiles down at the dog and rubs his head.

“Do you watch this show?” Harry asks, “I don’t really know what’s going on.”

“Why weren’t you paying attention to it when I was asleep?”

Harry looks at his hands in his lap, and Louis doesn’t know if it’s the remnants of grogginess that wasn't burned away by intensive tickling, or just an illusion, but he thinks he sees Harry’s cheeks turn a light shade of right, “I was... looking at something else.”

Louis nods, thinking nothing of it, and looks down to the discarded blanket that fell during their tussle. He picks it up and drapes it over himself once more, “Did you put this blanket on me? I don’t remember seeing it when I first came in here after going outside.”

Harry nods, “You were sort of... shivering. In your sleep. I turned down the thermostat but it didn’t do anything.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Do you want anything specific for dinner? I can make it for you.”

Louis shakes his head, “I’ll eat whatever your mum’s making. Do you know what it is?”

Harry shrugs, “It’s Tuesday, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Then we’re probably having haddock and jacket potatoes.”

“What the hell is a jacket potato?”

Harry laughs, a hint of fond in his tone, “You’ve never had a jacket potato?”

“Obviously not, Harold,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. He scratches down Bob’s ears as Harry explains it to him.

Louis laughs into the back of his hand in the midst of his explanation fit with gestures and specific details and he’s surprised he’s not pulling diagrams and charts out of his ass.

“Why are you laughing?” Harry asks, laughing himself, too, despite finding nothing except Louis funny.

“I dunno. You’ve said potato approximately one hundred times in the past five minutes. You’re like a living cookbook.”

Harry laughs, shaking his head and giving up, “When my mum and I start cooking dinner, I’ll show you how to do it.”

“Is cooking one of those things that you’re surprisingly good at but have never mentioned?”

“I don’t know if I would say I’m good at it, but I’ve been told I can make a mean crème brûlée.”

Louis throws his head back against the couch and groans out loud, “Ugh. Of course you can.”

Harry nudges Louis’ arm with his elbow, “Come on. Stop being like that. You’re good at lots of things.”

“Yeah, right.”

Harry frowns. “Stop that. Don’t say that.”

Louis scoffs, “What am I good for?”

“Fishing for compliments now, are we?”

Louis laughs, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, snapping his fingers, “Damn. I’ve been caught.”

Harry smiles and stares down at the couch, talking to the yellow fabric, “Well, you’re funny and can make people laugh. If nobody else, you make me laugh, if that matters at all. You’re smart, smarter than you give yourself credit for. You-”

Louis sighs, “But, like. Everyone’s like that. Anyone can make you laugh, and I’m not smart, not at all compared to you-” He shakes his head, standing up from the couch, “Here I am, being selfish again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m being rude, I just made the whole conversation about myself, and. You can just say that you think I’m useless, you wouldn’t be the first person- I need to go to the bathroom-”

Before Louis can even think to turn away, Harry reaches out and snatches his wrist, abruptly serious. He can’t believe Louis can’t see it in himself, how imposing he is. He’s too insecure for his own good.

“No. You’re not going anywhere until I can get you to see what I see,” He sounds almost livid as he says this, eyes and voice softening as he sees how Louis sits down, almost fearful of the boy in front of him. He doesn’t want that.

He sighs, looking up at the staircase where his parents and sister disappeared to. Harry stands up from the couch, hand still wrapped around Louis’ wrist, and tugs on it to tell Louis to get up. He does, and they go outside, where the sun has been replaced by the moon. They walk out onto the patio, walking to the patio fencing and leans against it, turning to face Louis. 

Louis looks good in this light, Harry isn’t afraid to admit it to himself anymore. The moon dances over the left side of his face, the side of his face Louis has mentioned to preferring, though Harry can’t tell a difference.

“You... God, I don’t even know where to begin,” Harry shakes his head, smiling to himself and proving his point unknowingly, “You make me smile. And I know that’s such a generic thing to say, you may be thinking, anyone can do that. But you don’t understand. You make me smile because you talk in your sleep and say the stupidest, most outrageous things, you snore and shiver and shake in your sleep, you can’t dance but you do it anyways because you don’t care about what other people think, my dog has fallen in love with you faster than with anyone else, you take ten years to decide on what you want to eat, and you close your eyes when you sing and lose yourself in the music. And I know you’d never admit it, but I know you’d bite the bullet for every one of your friends and family, you love them and they love you and they care about you and appreciate you so much, I hope you realize that.”

“And you’re stubborn, so damn stubborn and modest it’s almost frustrating for me, but it’s not a bad thing. It just means that you’re humble and you’re not conceited like half of this planet. You can sing, Christ, can you sing. You always talk about my voice, but have you heard yours? In another life, you were probably a part of Haydn Quartet. And, you’re hilarious. Sometimes I find myself in the dead of night, thinking about that one thing you said the day before and I just laugh myself to sleep. Even the thought of getting to be able to see and talk you again makes me happy when I’m upset and look forward to waking up just to see your face again.”

Louis looks at him, stupefied, “Harry, what-”

But Harry needs to get his point across first, before Louis says anything.

“And you. You’re so... Gorgeous. You could wear anything from a suit to a trash bag and you’d still look maddening. Sometimes I find myself staring at you, shaking my head, thinking, ‘God, whoever ends up with him is going to be so lucky.’ And I hope that whoever has their lucky stars in their pocket the day they meet you treats you the way you deserve to be treated, because you’re heaven on earth, Louis. I know it’s fucking insane for me to say all of this a week into knowing you, but I’ve seen all I need to see to know no one on this planet truly deserves you. No one deserves to see you at your best and your worst, because no one has been born yet with hands that can hold something as precious as your heart.”

His eyes soften looking at Louis, more than they ever have for someone, his voice dropping to a broken whisper to say, “And if that someone has been born, I hope it’s me.”

Even when he looks down to find that instead of Harry holding his wrist, he’s holding his hand, running his thumb across the bumps of his knuckles. Louis doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything. 

He can’t do much of anything, really. 

Which is why he steps away from Harry, shaking his head slowly, watching the way Harry steadily jumps into panic mode, “Wait, Louis-”

Louis shakes his head, stepping down backwards on the stairs, blurting like he’s drunk, words slurred, “I- Tell your parents I got sick. Please. I can’t-” His eyes go wide, feeling terror low in his gut, “I’m sorry.”

“Louis!” Harry calls after him from the porch, and Louis tries to ignore it, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare- Louis!” 

And maybe it’s the light-headedness, the cold breeze that makes goosebumps rise on his skin, the sheer shock of it all, but distorted voices carry in the wind. He can’t tell if they’re in his head, these voices aren’t familiar, but they call him a faggot. Dyke. Sinner. They tell him he’s going to hell. 

It keeps him moving, moving, moving until he’s home, stuck on those words that replay like a tape in his head until they’re engraved in stone, never to be forgotten, never to leave his thoughts as he’s talking to his mum with a secret on his shoulders she can’t see, never to leave as he’s walking through the streets, afraid someone’s going to see right through it, going to see that weight on his shoulders and turn him into a bloodied thing on the sidewalk that makes headlines in the newspaper, turn him into the argument at the dinner table, turn him into the nuisance of the town.

And if that someone has been born, I hope it’s me.  
~

He stares at the clock, watching as the seconds of summer pass away with a rhythmic tick-tock that Louis supposes is the only thing that keeps him sane, yet drives him off the edge all the same. It’s too loud when he’s trying to sleep, but not loud enough when his thoughts are too loud. He’s surprised he hasn’t smashed the damn thing yet.

It’s like that week after the concert after Harry and Louis stopped talking because they were too afraid to make the first move.

Except this time he knows Harry’s trying to get to him. It’s in the way the phone on his bedside table goes off every hour. It’s in the way there’s rocks being thrown at his window every night. It’s in the way the doorbell rings everyday, his mum answering it and telling him Louis doesn’t want to see anyone.

But Louis has to bite down on his fingers not to reach out and pick up the phone to hear Harry’s voice. Louis has to cover his ears and turn away from the window to stop himself from opening it and climbing out and kissing Harry. Louis has to curl his toes and grip the mattress to keep himself from running downstairs and holding Harry in his arms. 

“Oh no,” His mum had said the first day he stayed in his room all day, “Not this again. Not the moping around, love hurt Louis again.”

If only she knew who exactly he was hurting over, she wouldn’t be saying that. He would probably be homeless if she knew. 

“He’s back,” Louis muttered, a sad smile on his face, trying not to cry, holding his arms out like he’s presenting himself as this great, grand thing. There’s someone out there who thinks of him as exactly like that, but Louis’ too much of a coward to go out and face him. 

She brings food up to him on the days when he couldn’t get himself to get out of bed, and on the days when he could get out, she didn’t waste time to give him chores. He didn’t mind, though. It was better to be distracted than feel useless and writhing in his own sadness all day with nothing but his thoughts. 

On some days, the boys come over and hang out with Louis, and he’s always so close to tears when they do because he doesn’t deserve such good people in his life. They invite him out to the park or to parties or to the diner and sometimes Louis goes, but most of the time he doesn’t, and it’s always either because he genuinely feels sick to his stomach, or the chance of seeing Harry is too great. He doesn't think he'll ever be ready for that.

And while all of this is happening, Harry’s still doing all he can to reach Louis, and Louis' still trying to disappear. 

“Well, if you’re going to sit here and do nothing but watch television,” His mum begins one afternoon, leaning against the back of the couch and running her fingers through Louis’ hair, “D’you think you can maybe go grocery shopping? My shift starts in ten. I promise it’s not a big list, just a few things for dinner tonight. If you’re not feeling up for it, I understand-”

“I’ll go,” Louis says. He’s tired of feeling pathetic, watching Doctor Who episode reruns he’s memorized like he's memorized the way his clock looks like with tear-blurred eyes. 

And she sends him off, taking the bus to get to Tesco, the folded piece of paper in his pocket. He takes a basket from a stack in the front of the store, walking through the aisles and using the directory signs to show him where to go, because he needs to get out of there as quickly as he can. He’s on the last item, looking through the shelves for pesto sauce, when he hears someone behind him say, “I know.”

He looks over his shoulder to find Jenna standing there, her own basket filled with ingredients, herbs, and spices. 

“What?”

“I know what happened. Between you and Harry.”

Louis’ face falls. He doesn’t want to make a scene in the middle of Tesco, so he tries to wipe away his tears before she can see them. It’s futile, because she puts a hand on his shoulder. The action only makes them form and fall faster. “I’m sorry. God, I’m a mess.”

“He is too,” She sighs, looking left and right to make sure they’re alone, and lowers her voice, “Look, Louis. I didn’t mean to pry, but I’ve never heard him talk to anyone like the way he talked to you. Not even that twat Noel, or whatever his name was. You’ve got his heart in the palm of his hands, and so all I have to say, is that even though you’re scared- And I know you are- Please don’t break him. My brother’s hurting, I know it. He hasn’t cried like he has been since he was sixteen, the first time he found out Noel cheated on him. And I know you aren’t a slag like him. You love him too, don’t you?” 

Louis nods, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, “I-I. Yeah. I do.”

She smiles, rubbing up and down his arm, “Then you know what to do next. I’m sure of it. You’re a smart kid, Louis. And I hope that you know that everything he said is true. You make him a better man, and I haven’t seen him this happy in years, so for you to do that for him means everything to me. I’m tired of hearing my baby brother crying himself to sleep. So make him happy again, please?”

Louis nods, and walks into her arms as she pulls him in. They hug for a while, Louis asking, “Have you ever, um, been in love with a guy, like this?”

Jenna laughs against his hair, patting the back of his head, “Oh, yeah. Just not with a man,” Jenna pulls away before Louis can question it, taking the list from Louis’ hand, “Now- Oh, love. This isn’t even the sauces section, you’re literally looking at cereals.”

Louis laughs, genuine and wet against the sleeve of his sweater, and he knows it’s going to be okay.  
~

This time around, it’s not a little boy. It’s Harry. It’s Harry and Louis in their now, nineteen seventy-eight Harry and Louis playing the roles of nineteen seventy Harry and Louis on that hill.

But the moon still shines on his pale face all the same, still makes him look like heaven and hell.

Harry still tells Louis he looks prettier than the town lights, and Louis still feels his skin tighten on his bones. 

Harry still tells Louis, this time with his gruff voice, that maybe he’ll marry Louis. 

Louis trips on the rock and takes Harry down with him. 

Harry kisses him like how boys kiss girls in the movies do this time. Louis doesn’t push him away this time, even when the boys ride in with their bicycles and tell them it’s okay, that it’s okay for a boy to like a boy. 

Harry never moves, and Louis never gives him his Sweet Adeline vinyl, because he doesn’t need to. They listen to it together and dedicate it to each other every time they sing it. 

They get married even when it’s illegal, but they still do it because they don’t need a piece of paper from the city hall to declare their love.

Loving each other never gets old, even when they’re on their deathbeds and holding each other like they did when they were younger. 

Louis wakes up in a cold sweat, darting straight up in his bed. 

It’s the same dream, only this time it’s Harry. It’s always been Harry. 

The vinyl, the déjà vu in his eyes and the strangely familiar names, the dreams with the boy who’s face Louis could never seem to see. The vague memories of spending most of his childhood with someone by his side, but never having a name for him. 

It’s Harry. It’s always been Harry. He’s spent half of his life with Harry without even knowing it, and now he’s back. And his heart still belongs to Harry, just like it did when they were just kids.

And now he knows what Jenna meant by knowing what to do. He reaches out and turns on the lamp on his bedside, dialing the number with trembling fingers.

“Jenna,” He says once she’s answered.

“You’ve figured it out?”

Who knew a grocery store revelation could set him straight.

The tears brim in his eyes as he says, “I need you to do something.”  
~

He looks up at it in all of its ancient glory, wood still holding on, even when he last crawled into it eight years ago. He takes the ladder up, praying it won’t break under his weight. It doesn’t, and he pulls himself up in through the small hole. 

It’s just as he left it eight years ago. He didn’t come back in here after Harry moved out, because even if it was technically on Louis’ family’s property, it was always Louis and Harry’s. He didn’t feel right coming in here without Harry. Nothing felt right without Harry.

Everything is covered in a layer of dirt, books soaked and dried throughout the years of storms and winters, leaves scattered across the floor from being blown in through the small holes, couches and rugs worn by the elements. It wasn’t perfect, none of it was, but it was theirs. 

Now, here Louis is, eight years later, pacing the the tree houses’ floor, mentally preparing himself for what he’s about to do. 

But no matter how much he paces, how much he goes over what he’s going to say, nit-picking and scratching out the words he’ll use, none of it keeps his heart from pounding against his rib cage when he hears someone clambering up the ladder leading to the tree house.

This can go one of two ways, and Louis hopes it’s not the one that leaves them both hurting.

First it’s his big, curly hair, then it’s the red around his eyes and tip of his nose, then it’s the raw and bitten of his lips, then it’s the rest of him being pulled through the little hole, too long and too clumsy to fit without bending his knees.

“Hi, Louis,” Harry says, giving him a small, sad smile and distancing himself to the other end of the room and Louis knows he’s the reason why he’s made this boy made of pinks and purples and yellows turn into blacks and blues and grays. And it’s all the more reason to hate himself. “Jenna told me you wanted to talk to me.”

Louis nods and sits down where he’s standing, in the center of the room, cross-legged on the ground. Harry follows after him, sitting with his back against the wall. He looks so small and innocent, picking at the bottom of his shoe, waiting for Louis to speak. He doesn’t know how he could ever break this boy’s heart.

“When I was a little boy," He starts, because there's no better way to beg for forgiveness than to start with a story, "My mum, dad, and I would watch the news together. They said they wanted to keep me informed and prepared for the world. And it did, it kept me enlightened on what was happening, like even with the stuff in other countries, like the Vietnam War and John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It scared me, but that’s how the world is. And, of course, I would see stuff like the pride parades. I’d see the good side, the happy people marching for their freedom and rights, hugging and kissing each other. I loved that, but when I turned my head to look at my parent’s reactions, they were either glaring at the screen or looking away from it, and sent me off to my room. They’d rather let me see footage of men killing each other on the battlefield, than two men holding hands.”

Louis shakes his head, staring down at one of the holes in the ground, watching a bird hop around below, “And, I’d see the ugly side. The ‘God Hates Fags’ and ‘Jesus Saves From Hell’ flags. The beaten and bloodied supporters and marchers. It scared me so much. But, what scared me more, was to see my parent’s faces as they watched it. And to find them smiling. Smiling at those people who were kicking and punching gay rights supporters while they cried and screamed- Sometimes in front of their own children. And I would bring it up during dinner with them, and they’d just shrug it off and tell me those people deserved it. Even not too long ago, after you had dinner at my house, I asked my mom what she thought about Jenna after the whole fight thing. She started screaming at me, telling me how Jenna was wrong, how they’re disgusting sinners and don’t deserve to be treated as humans. And it scared me.”

“And after the concert, when you took me to that diner and came out to me and said all those things, about who you would like to fall in love with, it fucking frightened me. Because while you were listing all those things, I-” He sniffles, loud, and he can see Harry look up in his peripheral vision, “I wanted to do all of those things for you. It was the first time I felt something for anyone, and it scared the hell out of me. And for you to say all of that about me, to tell me I’m gorgeous, to say I make you smile, to say whoever ends up with me will be lucky, to say you hope it’s you.”

Louis feels the tears run hot across his skin before he’s even aware he’s crying, “It terrified me because I’m feeling all these things I’ve never felt for anyone, let alone a boy. You make my heart leap and soar and jump and all that other cheesy bullshit, but I know this might come back to bite me in the ass one day, and when I think about being with you, I think about all that shit on the news and what my mother says about us being disgusting sinners and- That’s why I didn’t say anything to you after that. This thing that started out as butterflies when I thought of the next time I would get to see you, became bigger than myself after you said what you said, and I was scared. I was scared because I couldn't fight it, couldn't control it. That’s why I ran and why I ignored you when you threw rocks at my window, called me, knocked on my door. Because I was a coward and I wanted you to forget me. But you still did it after I hurt you and ignored you and made you cry yourself to sleep, because you’re so fucking persistent and stubborn and I can’t get myself to stop loving you,” Louis laughs, wiping the back of his hand against his eye, though it doesn’t really do anything so he pulls the neck of his shirt up to his face and it’s the closest thing to disappearing, so he takes it.

He doesn’t see him, but he hears Harry crawling across the floor, closing the space between them. Harry’s arms wrap around him. He never wants him to let go, because this is what everyone always talks about when they say home can be a person. 

“A-And It’s okay if you hate me for the rest of your life for hurting you, It’s okay if you never talk to me again after this, it’s okay if you forget any of this happened, it’s okay if you forget I ever existed. But I just want you to know that I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for leaving you in the dust, I’m sorry for ignoring you after you spilled your heart out to me, I’m sorry for not telling you this earlier. But, what I’m not sorry for is for falling in love with you,” Louis chokes out, feeling the air escape from his lungs even when he’s still breathing.

“I’ll never be sorry for that. Not tomorrow, not in a week, not in a month, not when I’m on my deathbed still wondering how it would’ve felt to hold your hand in the streets. Never, in a million years, will I ever regret falling in love with you.”

Harry pulls back, running his thumbs under Louis’ eyes, “Say that again,” He whispers.

Louis smiles and closes his eyes, feeling Harry’s lips press against his cheekbones, the tip of his nose, over his eyelids, the corners of his mouth, his forehead, his hair, igniting each little spot on fire, “I love you. I love you more than I love myself, I love you more than anything in the entire fucking world and I want to scream it from the rooftops because you make me not want to be afraid anymore. I’ll brave the wrath of the planet, but only if you’re there with me.”

Harry grabs the sides of his face and pushes their lips together for the first time in eight years and Louis has to place a hand on the ground behind himself to steady them. But this time it means more than anything words can describe. This time, both of them are crying and it’s not rushed. It’s gentle and Louis’ aware by now that good things come to an end but he knows this good thing never will, because they’re both in it for the long run.

Harry pulls back when they need air, lips red and wet, large palms still on the sides of Louis’ face, Louis’ hands still resting on Harry’s waist, “I know I’ve been a fool in the past and let the wrong person back in. But I know you’re not him. You’re different, so different. I said I loved him before I knew what love was, and this is it. The ache in my chest is divine, it doesn't hurt. I’ve had a taste of a life without you for the past eight years and they’ve proven to be some of the worst of my life, so I know it’s not a life I want to live. I love you, I love you, I love you. These hands were made for holding you, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that.”

Louis moves his hands from his waist to cup Harry’s chin in his hands, running his thumbs over the indents of his dimples, “You know that we used to be friends?”

Harry nods, “I just figured that out. I never really forgot, I always had dreams of a boy on the hill we used to go to, but I couldn’t quite remember his face. And then I came here, our tree house, and realized it was you.”

Louis wraps his arms around Harry’s neck, a knowing smile on his lips, Harry’s arms find a place on his lower back. They don’t move for a long, long time. 

“What now?” Louis asks into his shoulder once he’s calmed down.

“Well, for now, It’s just us. I know you’re new to relationships, so we’ll take it slow. If you want to come out in the future, we will. We can tell Jenna, and then we’ll tell the boys, if that’ll make you happy. And if we decide to come out to our parents, we’ll do that too.”

His heart churns at the thought of telling his parents. He sets it aside for now.

“I know the boys’ll be alright with it. I’m almost a hundred percent sure Liam and Zayn have fucked in the past, maybe even still do.”

Harry laughs, wet against Louis’ shoulder, “I did kind of notice a bit of eye fucking at the diner last week.”

“How do you think they’ll react? Our parents, I mean.”

“I don’t care, honestly. I’m moving to Cambridge soon enough, and I’ll be out of their house if they decide to forget me as their son.”

“I’m not ready to let you go a second time, and I know long distance never works out, so if my parents do the same, I’ll come with you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Harry smiles at the way the tears flow freely down the planes of Louis’ face, ending their journeys with a swipe of his thumb across his cheekbone, “If I could be apart from you and after eight years and find your heart still mine, I don’t think long distance would be any match for us.”

Louis laughs, “Did you sort of just quote Sweet Adeline?”

“I’m glad you caught that,” Harry says, pulling back away from his shoulder, eyes red, “It’s sort of our song, isn’t it?”

Louis smiles and nods, pressing his fingertips against the corners of Harry’s eyes, wiping away his tears, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before. Not even as a kid.”

Harry looks away, and Louis doesn’t miss the way his cheeks burn as he says, “You make me weak.”

Louis presses their lips together for a touch longer, just because he can now.  
~  
July, 1978

“Can I take it off now? Please?” Harry pleads, pouting his bottom lip.

“You’re really impatient. I’m going to turn this car around if you don’t stop whining.”

Harry moves his hand that’s currently holding Louis’ to pinch the skin of his arm. Louis yelps and Harry snickers.

“Fine, we’re here. Don’t take the blindfold off, though.”

Harry groans and Louis gets out of his car, walking around it to open up the passenger side’s door. He guides Harry out of the car and shuts the door behind him.

“Put your hands on my shoulders like this,” He says, standing in front of Harry, facing away from him, and directs his hands to fall on his shoulders. Louis puts his hands over his and guides them off the concrete and onto the grass.

“We’re walking on grass now. I think this is the part where you murder me and sacrifice my body to Satan.”

Louis laughs, squeezing his hands gently, “You’re always catching onto my plans before I can go through with them.”

The smell of fire is faint when they finally stop. Harry thinks he really is going to be scarified, when Louis stands behind him to untie the blindfold.

The blindfold comes off, and in front of him, on the grass, is a picnic blanket laid out on the ground. On top of it is a bottle of wine and two glasses, paper plates full of jacket potatoes, tiny square sandwiches, strawberries, and three lit candles. Spread out around the blanket are rose petals that form a heart.

Harry gasps, looking to the side to see Louis’ face, whose chin is propped up on his shoulder, “You did this!?”

“No, I just found it here and claimed it. Of course I did this, idiot. Along with your sister, given I can’t cook to save my life. But most of it was my idea. She said your favorite flowers were roses, so I went into your backyard and picked a few.”

Harry smiles, spinning around to place his hands in Louis’ hair, pulling him close and kissing him. Even though it’s been a month since the tree house incident, both boys haven’t quite gotten used to the feeling of holding each other, kissing each other, saying ‘I love you,’ freely, behind closed doors. It’s been quite easy to keep it hidden, since both of their parents never bat an eye when they go out together, retreat into their rooms for hours on end, pull away from each other before their mum’s come into their room without knocking, writing it up as ‘boys being boys.’

“It’s lovely,” He says once they’ve pulled away, “Is this our first date?”

Louis nods, “Yeah. I wouldn’t count all those times at the diner, since that’s pretty unoriginal. I wanted to do something special for you, so. This is it.”

“I tried helping your sister with the potatoes, but that went disastrously, so I took the slightly burned one. Yours shouldn’t be burned, though. Or poisoned. Unless your sister has something against you.” He pulls his lips up to his wine glass after pouring the bottle into both glasses.

“It tastes good. Did you make the sandwiches? They’re cute.”

Louis blushes, “Yeah. It’s the only thing I can make, really.”

Harry smiles at the red-cheeked boy in front of him, “That’s alright. When we move in together, I’ll do the cooking. And the washing up. And the bed making. And the gardening.”

Louis doesn’t miss the way Harry doesn’t make it an ‘if’ statement that they’ll move in together, but more of a fact. He still recoils in fake shock, placing a hand over his chest, despite the twang of his heart in adoration for this boy, “I’m insulted.”

Harry rolls his eyes, fond, “I’m insulted you think I’d let you go anywhere near cleaning supplies after seeing your room.”

Louis lets out a ‘hmph’ at that. “But I will have to learn how to clean up after myself, since you’re going to be going to school.”

Harry frowns, “And you’re not?”

Louis shrugs, “What would I study? Where would I go? It’s not like Cambridge would even consider me. Besides, when we do leave this wretched little town... I was thinking of doing something different. Other than going to school.”

Harry raises his eyebrows, crossing his legs in front of him and biting his tiny sandwich into a heart, “And that is?”

“I want to... like... Be an activist? I guess? For LGBT rights. Like, you know. March in the pride parades. Speak in public events. Find other people like us. But, I’m going to get a job, too, in case you were wondering. I dunno what, but I’m sure I’ll find something. Just to help keep us afloat until you’re done studying.”

“Whatever makes you happy, I’m happy with, babe,” Harry sets down his crudely shaped sandwich and grabs another one, planning to bite it into a penis, “Can I ask why, though?”

Louis picks at his now lukewarm potato with a plastic fork, “I know it’s... probably too early for me to even think about this, but- If there is a day where you and I decide we want to spend the rest of our lives together, I want to be able to do that. And I know, we don’t need the government to solidify our love, but, still. I want to fight for our right to have that option. And, I want to give the Little Guy a voice, those people who are too afraid. I don’t want them to be scared like I was.”

And if Harry thought he couldn’t fall even further in love with this boy, he was wrong. This selfless, wonderful boy in front of him has got his heart caught in a cage made of his own.

“What do you mean if we get married. The last time we were on this hill together and I told you I would marry you, I wasn’t kidding.”

This selfless, wonderful boy in front of him is promptly reduced to a blushing, bashful mess.

“I can’t believe you remembered that,” Louis murmurs, losing the battle to rid his face of that divine grin Harry can’t get enough of.

“I want to come out,” Harry blurts, too caught up in the dream of unrealistic happy ever after with his boy to really know what he’s saying. But he doesn’t regret it. “And I don’t care if my parents flip the fuck out. If it means that I get to tell the truth about us, so be it. But only if you’re okay with it, too. Are you?”

Louis traces the patterns of the picnic blanket with his eyes, thinking, before he’s nodding. “Yeah. I want to. With you.”

Harry nods and smiles, watching the way Louis looks down into his glass of wine, swirling it around and watching the tornado effect. It’s a subconscious action, but he finds himself saying, “I love you.” He feels like he doesn’t say it enough. But it’s only because he wants it to keep its effect, and doesn’t want it to become one of those meaningless statements for greetings and departures. He wants it to keep its magic. Besides, he has hundreds of means of showing how much he loves Louis, and saying those three words are just one of them.

Louis looks up at him before crawling over to him so they’re beside each other. “I love you, too,” He’s leaning in, parting his lips to meet Harry’s halfway, before there’s a loud pop that rings out through the air, a crackle and flash of light following shortly after.

On instinct, the boys pull the other into themselves. 

“The fuck was that!?” Harry yells, looking around in the dark. The leaves of trees continue their routine shake and sway, the crickets still chirp, the moon still stretches the shadows long and silver. Nothing is out of place. 

Then it’s happening again, the pop, fizzle and sudden light up of the world. It scares the shit out of Harry a second time, until Louis is letting out a laugh and loosening his grip on Harry’s back. He pats his chest and points to the sky in front of them, over the town.

“It’s just fireworks, babe. It’s the fourth of July. I guess the kids just want an excuse to use their fireworks, even if we were literally the ones keeping America from independence.”

Louis is right- Not even five seconds later, there’s a small light that shoots up into the air, around a hundred feet, and explodes, sprinkling the black backdrop of the sky with greens and blues and whites. 

“Oh,” Harry says, finally relaxing, easing his grip on Louis. He sits back on his hands, and watches the fireworks shoot, burst, and fall. But his eyes shift and land on the side of Louis’ face, who observes at the sky like he’s in awe, face reflecting the vibrant colors. 

Harry wonders if Louis knows he’s more magnificent than the constellations. It’s impossible for him not to when he shines so brightly. 

But if he doesn’t, he just has to show him. 

He does just that when he sits up and brushes his lips against Louis’ cheek. Louis wraps an arm around his waist and continues looking forward.

His admiration is short-lived when there’s quick footfalls behind them, tin clanging against tin. The boys look behind them, instantly pulling apart like they’ve grown to know that’s what they should do. Niall, Zayn, and Liam run up to them yielding beer cans, a box of what looks like firework shells, and- Well, Niall just comes empty-handed, letting the other boys do the dirty work.

They’re a giggling mess until they realize Louis and Harry are there, staring back like they’ve been caught red-handed in a crime. They suppose they have.

“Oh,” Liam says first, “We didn’t realize you two would be up here.”

Niall points to the candle-lit picnic setup. Louis feels a knot in his chest. “Are you two... together?”

Louis and Harry look to each other, and Louis nods, “We are.”

Niall looks at them, mock serious, before breaking out into a beaming grin, “That’s great. You two make a cute couple.”

“They do, don’t they?” Zayn says, and Liam nods in agreement.

“Sorry to ruin your date, and as lovely as it looks,” Liam holds up the beer, “Getting a little smashed and playing with fireworks would be a bit funner, wouldn’t it?”

Niall walks forward as Liam and Zayn get set up, picking up Harry’s masterpiece of a penis-shaped sandwich, without realizing it’s a penis. Harry laughs and Louis slaps his arm, though he’s unable to resist a giggle himself. 

“I know this is random and all, but,” Niall says between munches, talking with his mouth full. Tasteful etiquette was never his thing, “Weren’t you that little year five kid that Louis would never shut up about? I mean, I was close to insanity from how much he rattled on and on about your green eyes and curly hair and big brain and,” Niall shakes his head, “I’m surprised you two were dating from the start, Louis was practically married to you then, with all that gushing-”

“Alright,” Louis sticks out a flat hand, “He was. And I think you’ve said enough to ensure that Harry will never give this piece of information up. Thanks, Ni.”

Harry holds out an ‘aw’ as he throws an arm around Louis’ shoulders, staring at him fondly, “You had a crush on me?”

Louis shakes his head, “Shut up. You were in love with me first. You literally said you would marry me when fractions were still stressful.”

Niall pouts, “Fractions are still stressful. But- Wait. You’d said you’d marry him? Well, you’ve got to stay true to that promise, don’t you, Haz?”

Harry looks down at Louis and meets his eyes, smile growing wider than humanly possible, “Of course. I’m going to marry the fuck out of you, one day. I can’t imagine sharing my life with anyone else.”

Before Louis can respond, Zayn’s yelling, “Run!” As a fizz goes off. Every boy besides Harry and Louis go scattering in a different direction, instead holding each other’s hand as breathy giggles escape their mouths, running and looking back to see fireworks explode and squeal on the ground, lighting the grass with colors and smoke. 

And if Louis could feel home in a moment, it would be this one.  
~

After Louis convinces his mum, the two families reconnect one week later over lunch, the table consisting of tea, Chicken Tikka Masala, and Herbed Yorkshire pudding. But little did anyone else know, that Louis and Harry had something up their sleeves.

“Everything looks so good, Hannah,” Ava gushes as Hannah sets down the plates, filling the table’s surface with smells and spices that makes everyone’s mouths drool.

“Thank you. You’re such a doll, Ava. So, Harry. I heard you’re moving to Cambridge to start uni, yes? Is it scary?”

Harry smiles, glancing down at his hands underneath the table, clammy and wringing together, “Yeah. It’s really scary, going off on my own for the first time,” He glances at his mum, who smiles back at him with pride and places a comforting hand on his thigh. He feels his heart drop once he realizes that, that may be the last time she looks at him that way, after they’ve said what they needed to. He looks back at his lap, “But this bird’s got to leave the nest sometime, right?”

Owen finishes filling his glass with orange juice, when, “I don’t think this bird’s ever leaving the nest,” He laughs throatily, looking pointedly at Louis.

Louis catches Harry’s eye. He nods. His heart picks up speed. It’s now or never.

“Speaking of which, I want to move, too. To Cambridge.”

The room fills with silence. Owen cocks his head, “Why, son? You haven’t been accepted, have you?”

“No,” Louis has to look at the wall, he can’t see the change in their eyes, “I want to move in with Harry while he attends school. We’re planning on buying a flat near the university.”

“Why?” Hannah queries, “Zayn and Liam have been asking you to move in with them for-”

She cuts herself short, face draining of any color, as she watches Louis and Harry bring their joined hands up and onto the table, “Y-You...”

“W- We’re in love,” Harry whispers, as if speaking too loud could awaken some sort of invisible evil in the room. But it does wake up, in the form of Andrew suddenly choking on a piece of chicken. Jenna stands up and goes around the table to perform the Heimlich maneuver on her father, who soon enough coughs up that little piece of disaster.

“You WHAT?” He croaks, eyes so wide Louis is almost afraid they might fall out.

They’ve practiced this a hundred times, a thousand, possibly. But Louis does something that was never planned.

He stands up and goes around the table until he’s standing opposite of his father at the other end of the table, catching everyone’s eyes. His face is neutral- Bored, almost. But Harry knows it’s all a facade. All alarms are going off within his body, his insides are melting away, but he doesn’t let it show on his exterior. Like a professional businessman in front of another company’s CEO, about to make the deal of the century. He takes in a deep breath, exhaling slowly, eyes opening to reveal a different persona.

“I know you’re all in shock. We can’t possibly be...” He gasps, faking revelation, “Gay! The word that carries so much stigma correlated with evil, sin, disgust,” He begins to pace, well aware of every pair of eyes on him, “But... Could it be possible that it’s not true? You were probably unsuspecting of Harry and I being gay before, because we don’t follow the so-called ‘stereotype’. Cross-dressing, sex-crazed, wild men and women who smash car windows to drive a point. But could it also be possible that your predefined definition of 'monsters' who like the same gender, or believe they were born in the wrong body, are all their own person? Crazy, right? It’s unimaginable to believe that Harry and I have not even been close to performing...” Another faux gasp, “Gay sex! Homosexual coitus! Anal! Butt sex! But it’s true. There’s more to us queer folk than just fucking like bunnies. We’re humans who love. Just like my mum loves my dad, and vice versa, and you, Mrs. and Mr. Twist. Except we’re both men.”

“And, you may be thinking, this is a choice, right? Well, news flash, you don’t chose who you fall in love with. In the way that you can’t possibly fall in love with a man, dad and Mr. Twist, and the way you can’t fall in love with a woman, mum and Mrs. Twist, we can’t for women. And why would I choose to be gay, if I know my parents are going to throw me out of the house? Why would I chose to be gay, if I know whenever I want to hold Harry’s hand in public, I have to worry about who’s going to murder me? This could all be avoided, if I just get a girlfriend and marry her, right? But I don’t want to. She wouldn’t make me happy, because I wouldn’t be able to love her the way I love Harry. In your guide to life, the bible, 1 John 4:7, it says, ‘Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God’. And if I love, if everyone else like me loves to love, why am I excluded? If God loves all his children, and I am God’s child, why is my soul bound to hell? If I am only following his order to love, why does he hate me? If you are the ones preaching hate, why doesn’t God hate you instead?”

“That’s enough, Louis,” Owen says, a knuckle-white grip on the edge of the table, a vein bulging from his neck. Louis has always found the calm rage his father could control scarier than any unruly screaming. It just means he’s stopping himself from doing something he’ll regret.

“Please, think about what I’m saying. Don’t stop listening to me because I’m gay. Listen to me because I am your son. Listen to Harry, because he is your son. We’re the same people we were five minutes ago, just with less weight on our shoulders.”

“I think you two should leave.” Ava says, avoiding anyone’s gaze. She pulls at the frayed tablecloth. 

“Please-”

“Get. Out,” Hannah seethes, black tears from her stained mascara running down hollow cheeks, “Get the fuck out. Just get out of my house.”

A sob racks through Andrew in the pause of silence. It surprises himself, even. He hides his face in his hands.

Louis nods and walks out the front door, Harry following close behind, struggling to catch up, “Louis, please,” He hears him say. He walks with no real destination until he’s a block away from his house, before he’s collapsing onto his knees, too powerless to even carry himself anymore. 

"I guess that father son football game is really of the table then," Louis jokes humorlessly, before his voice gives way and he's sobbing into his hands.

“Louis,” Harry whispers, running up to him and drops to his knees, wrapping his arms around his boy, feeling hot tears sting his own eyes, “You were so brave. So brave in there, I’m proud of you.”

“I th- I thought It would be okay. I was stupid. I thought it would be okay. I wanted to show them I wasn’t scared,” His voice is raw, lower lip trembling, heaving. He wants to throw up.

“And you’re not. You’re not scared. You’re not weak. You’re so strong. If they don’t come around, screw them. They’re losing out on something so good. It’s their loss.”

“I’m so tired,” Louis whispers, “I want to sleep.”

“Yeah, of course, baby. Go to sleep, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” 

And just like that, in the middle of the sidewalk on an empty neighborhood, Louis falls asleep clutching the boy of his dreams, who runs his fingers through his hair and sings their song until the rise and falls of his chest even out.

“ Though my heart is sad and clouds above are hovering. The sun again, love, for me would shine.”  
~  
August, 1978

Three weeks later, Louis and Harry have yet to go back home. 

After hearing about what happened, Liam and Zayn took them into their cozy little flat with open arms, Niall sleeping over everyday as added support. Louis cried when he first told the story, clutching a cup of tea, each boy listening intently. Harry rubbed tiny circles into his back, taking over the storytelling when Louis’ voice gave out. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have such good friends, to have such a good boyfriend.

“Fuck them,” Liam said simply, jaw muscles flickering under his skin, “They don’t deserve you two. If they can’t see through your sexuality and still see the same yous from two days ago, they don’t deserve you.”

Louis shook his head, “I can’t just forget them. I love them. They raised me.”

“We just... Um,” Harry cleared his throat, “Need to not think about it. For a bit. Until we move to Cambridge.”

“Until then, you guys can stay here. You’re always welcome.”

Jenna called them every few days just to give them updates on how Harry’s parents are, Louis’ parents too, if she sees them. Most of the time, it isn’t good, and their hearts break a bit more with every time Jenna hesitated to tell them they’re still yelling, still crying, still hysterical, still acting like it’s the end of the world.

It’s not until it’s a week away from the start of Harry’s classes that they decide they need to go back. 

“I’m so scared,” Harry whispers in the dark, laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. He hasn’t admitted it before, but he doesn’t want to mask it anymore. 

Louis pats around the bed sheets, trying to find Harry’s hand. He finds it and brings it up to his lips, keeping it there as he talks, lips brushing against cool skin, “I am, too. But we’re in this together. Whatever happens, I’m never leaving your side.”

“I love you,” Harry whispers, shifting on the bed so he’s hugging Louis’ side, “I didn’t think I could love someone this much. You help me forget the pain.”

Louis smiles, a tear squeezing out from the corner of his eye and running down the side of his face. Harry doesn’t need to know.

“I love you too. Forever and always.”

“Always,” Louis says, before Harry’s breathes slow down and even out. He listens to the tiny huffs until exhaustion catches up with him and their breathing falls into a slow rhythm, heartbeats slow, like the beats of a drum. 

Ten hours later, they’re standing in front of Louis’ house. Louis wants to turn around, wants to walk away and never look back, wants to forget. But he needs to do this, they both know it.

“Just stay calm,” Harry reminds as Louis raps his knuckles against the door. It opens a few seconds later, revealing Louis’ mum. She stares between the two of them with a blank expression.

“I need to get my stuff,” He says, not looking her in the eyes. She steps aside, allowing them to come inside. They go upstairs and start packing and folding away Louis’ things, moving quickly without even realizing it. They’re in and out within an hour, boxes pushed and stacked into the trunk of Zayn and Liam’s car they let them borrow until they get their moving truck. Louis is walking downstairs while Harry finishes up in Louis’ room, grasping a box of clothes. He catches his mum’s eye, who’s standing by the front door, motionless. He sets down the box and walks over to his mum, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“Is dad home?” He asks, and she shakes her head, mumbling something about work. He feels something cool and wet fall on his shoulder, but he doesn’t question it. “I love you. I’ll miss you,” He admits, though she doesn’t hug back. It hurts, but at least she’s letting him do this.

He pulls away and he can see the glint of tears in the sun that streams in from the open door. He gives her a sad smile, kind of wishing his dad were here. He picks up the box of clothes and carries it to the car as Harry comes down with the last box.

But before Harry can walk through the door, Louis’ mum puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks at her, and watches the way tears form and fall, “Take care of my boy, please.”

Harry nods and plants a kiss on her cheek. He leaves as she closes the door behind him, stacking the box on another in the trunk of the car and shutting it. Climbing into the drivers seat, he buckles his seat belt as he glances at Louis, who looks out the window with wet eyes. Harry takes hold of his hand and runs his thumbs over the bumps of his knuckles, the way he always does.

“They love you,” He says, “I hope you know that.”

Louis nods, staying silent and Harry starts the car. They drive to Harry’s house, and now it’s Harry’s turn.

It’s less eventful, if that’s even possible. Just cold, dead glares from his mum and dad, Jenna helping out with the packing and loading. Harry feigns indifference, though, and goes about his business, when really he can feel the heat of their stares against his face, and it makes it hard for him to ignore, but he manages. It’s not after she’s hugged Louis and whispered something in his ear and they’re in the car that he cracks. 

Louis rubs circles into the back of his neck, feeling on the verge of crying again just from listening as Harry stutters, “They could’ve said anythin-g. They could’ve smiled at me, yelled at me. H-Hit me. At least I would be able to remember them by something. B-But no. They just... fucking... Stared at me. Looked at me like I was a monster walking around in their house. Fuck, fuck,” He slams his hands down on the steering wheel with each utter of, “Fuck. Fuck!”

“They love you. That’s never going to change. Even if they don’t show it, deep down, they still love you. They always will, baby.”

“I know,” Harry croaks, sloppily wiping his eye with his palm, and rubbing his eyes with his fingertips until he’s seeing stars behind his eyelids, “I know. I just... Wish they would set it aside. A-And just pretend. Pretend that I wasn’t gay and just ignore it.” 

“They’ll come around one day. And until then, know that they love you. They love you so much it hurts to show it,” Louis comforts, trying to convince himself as he goes.

They drive back to Zayn and Liam’s, where they’ll spend their last day, and tomorrow, they’re gone.

As soon as they walk through the door, the boys are standing on the other side, while Zayn is struggling to pop open a bottle of champagne with a knife, rock music from a vinyl playing somewhere in the apartment. When he finally does manage to get it off, they all cheer, including Louis and Harry, even if they’re still hurting. 

Liam leaves to the kitchen to get everyone glasses as Zayn downs some of the champagne straight from the bottle. Louis wrinkles his nose but smiles anyway.

“How was it?” Niall asks, careful.

Harry sighs, “It was... alright, I guess. There wasn’t any yelling, which I would've preferred over the way they just stared, but. I guess it’s okay. It’s over.”

Niall pulled both boys into a hug, “You guys smell really good.”

Louis laughs, trying not to cry, “Thank you Niall.”

They pull away and drink until the sun goes down, then play board games and talk about nothing until each boy slowly passes out, like a virus spreading through the room. Harry and Louis are the last two left, too drunk to really do anything but talk.

“You look so pretty, baby,” Harry giggles, trying to balance his empty glass on top of Louis’ forehead as they both lay on the ground.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Louis groans rolling onto his stomach and curls in on himself, making the glass tumble onto the ground without shattering. He turns his head so his cheek is resting against the rough carpet, looking at Harry. He smiles when Harry lies down next to him, so close their noses brush.

“We could just go to sleep in our bed. It isn’t too-” He cuts himself off with a hiccup, laughing, “far.”

Louis tries to shake his head, but instead digs his cheek farther into the carpet so his lips almost touch it, “’M... too tired to move.”

Harry smiles mischievously and stands up. Louis would look up to see where Harry went, if he weren’t so drunk. But he doesn’t need to when he feels arms wrap under his knees and shoulders, hoisting him up from the ground. He puts his arms around Harry’s neck and rests his head on his shoulder, smiling contently. 

He feels the warmth and softness of their temporary bed, the blankets being pulled higher on his body. He doesn’t open his eyes, only feeling around for Harry. He feels the bed dip and the sheets ruffle, Harry’s body heat returning to his side, as it always should be.

“If you’d told me eight years ago that I’d be laying here in this bed with you, today, I’d have called you crazy.”

Louis sobers up a bit, feeling a smile pull his lips, “If I’d have told you that you would be out to your parents, attending Cambridge, of all places, pulled on stage by your favorite rock star, moving out, and pretty damn successful, would you have believe me?”

“I don’t care about those things. None of that could be happening right now, and I would’ve still been happy if it was just you and I, living in a...” Harry begins to doze off, exhaustion catching up with him, “Box. With a dog. Bob. Bobby.”

Louis laughs against his pillow, “You’re cute.”

Harry rests an arm over Louis’ stomach, pulling him closer and whispering, “You too. Let’s go to sleep, we’re drunk.”

They do, and in the morning, before anyone else is awake, Louis wakes and sits up in the bed, the blankets falling from his chest to pool around his lap. The door is slightly open, and he can see a passed out Zayn and Liam cuddled together on the couch with Zayn’s upper-body thrown half over Liam’s, Niall on a chair beside them, all sleeping soundly. He looks to his left to see a peaceful-looking Harry, pillow cradling his cheek and blanket pulled over his shoulder. The house is quiet, except for the occasional creak of the walls settling and the birds chirping outside. 

Even if his parents have alienated him to a stranger- A monster, even, other than his son, he’s happy. He’s so, so happy he’s with these four guys who, without them, his life wouldn’t have been anywhere as blissful as it is. He probably wouldn’t even be alive right now, if it weren’t for them. The knowing of having to keep in a secret that’s such a big part of who he is, would have killed him. Being neglected by his parents because of coming out and not having a support system behind him would have killed him. Without these boys, he would have died by his own hands. 

But he doesn’t want to think about that right now. Not now, not ever. So he lays back down, turning onto his side to face Harry, and watches his beautiful boy sleep.  
~

“Do you guys already have a flat picked out?” Zayn asks once Louis and Harry are finished checking to make sure everything they need is in the moving truck. 

“Yeah, from a newspaper listing. it’s a one-bedroom, one-bathroom flat. It’s pretty small, about five-hundred square feet, but it’s inexpensive enough to keep us living comfortably while Harry’s studying and I’m working. We called the landlord and he’d said he’d keep the place reserved for us until we came to look at it, but I think it’ll be fine.”

“That’s cool,” Zayn smiles, leaning against the side of the truck, eyes closing in imagination, “Moving in with the love of your life. Imagine how domestic you two are gonna be.”

Louis laughs, “Why are you so enchanted? You’ve already moved in with Liam.”

Zayn’s eyes fly open, cheeks burning hot, “I- What? N-no. That's not what I-”

“I’m just kidding, mate,” Louis says as Zayn lets out a nervous, yet relieved laugh. Though it is an interesting thing to keep note of.

Harry comes up behind Louis and places his hands on the tops of his shoulders, kissing his hair, “I think we’re done, love. Everything’s loaded. Remember, we’re paying by the hour for this big ass truck.”

Louis nods, Harry letting go of him so he can step forward to hug Zayn. 

“Don’t forget about us here. Come visit every now and then, please?”

“Of course. And we’ll call, yeah?”

Zayn nods, smiling sadly in sudden realization that he’s about to lose his best friend. Louis’ about to pull away when he recognizes the miserable in his eyes. He frowns.

“Don’t be upset, Zayn. You’ve got the other boys. We’ll come visit, I promise. And we’ll drink lots of beer and get smashed and cause chaos and whatever you want. We’ll be back before you know it. I just... Can’t stay in this town. After everything that’s happened.”

“And it’s a pretty shitty town.”

Louis laughs, nodding, “And It’s a pretty shitty town.”

Zayn cheers up a bit after that, and that’s good enough for Louis. He knows how it feels to have your best friend ripped away from you after knowing nothing other than having them within arms reach.

“Shit,” Louis hears Harry mutter under his breath.

“What?” Louis asks, turning around to face him.

He points to five little figures in the distance, walking towards them. Even from here, Louis knows it's their parents and Jenna. A gasp leaves him as he backs up into the truck, as if running from them would do him any good.

Liam and Niall come out of the truck and join the two boys, looking in the distance.

“Fuck. What are they doing here?” Niall seethes.

Harry shakes his head as the three boys stand in front of them like a protective barricade, “They didn’t say they’d be coming.”

Louis’ heart pounds against his rib cage as they cross the street to reach the outside of Liam and Zayn’s apartment building, where they stand. They don’t stop until they’re standing right in front of them. But they don’t look upset or vexed. They’re just... standing there.

“What are you guys doing here?” Louis asks, the boys parting from in front of them so Louis and Harry can talk to their parents.

“To say goodbye.”

Louis scowls. If they’re not going to apologize, they might as well not even be here. Louis’ been trying to forgive and forget, but he needs more time. And more callous staring isn’t going to do anything but set him back.

“Why would you want to say goodbye to a couple of faggots, huh? We’re not your sons, apparently, if you’re going to dehumanize us to ‘disgusting-’”

“Please,” Hannah chokes out, “I just want to say goodbye to my little boy, please.”

Louis stops talking. His heart hurts. It hurts so much. 

“We might not be the best, most accepting parents, we know,” Andrew begins, “But we’re trying. And this is how we start. We want to apologize for how we reacted. And we shouldn’t have. Because you’re still our boys. Even if you’re...” He looks almost pained to say it, but they know he’s trying to get used to it, the word, “Gay. We want to be there for you.”

“We may not be happy one-hundred percent with what you’re doing. And we may still think that being a... homosexual, is a choice, but we still want to try and reach that one-hundred percent,” Ava drags a single finger across her under-eye, looking up, “What you said, Louis, really made us think. And we talked about it. And we want to accept you boys, to the best of our abilities.”

Owen takes his turn to speak, “We realize you’re in love. In the way that two people love. And while it’s not the traditional couple that God would have wanted, we know that God loves all of his children, and you’re still his children. We wouldn’t have forgiven ourselves, ever, if we let you two walk away thinking your parents no longer love you because of who you chose to love,” He looks two seconds from breaking down, and Louis’ grateful for it. That his father is showing emotions that aren’t complete and utter anger or indifference.

“Just to let you know, I’m not apart of this heartfelt, coordinated speech thing. I’m just here to say bye,” Jenna interjects, and Louis might just kiss her. She’s always made him felt so normal, so at home, so comfortable. She was the first to learn about and accept them, and set him straight when he needed it. If it weren’t for her, none of this would be happening. 

“We love you boys. And we’re sorry we made you think otherwise,” Hannah walks forward and pulls both boys into a hug, tears staining both of their shirts, not that they mind.

After a definitely not dry-eyed hugging montage, between the boys and Jenna and their parents, and an entire group hug that nearly suffocated Louis and Harry, they climb into the front seats of the truck. 

“Wait,” Jenna says, knocking on the glass of the passenger-side door. Louis rolls it down so she can talk.

“What’s up?”

“Open the door.”

Louis does, and a mass of heat and fur jumps in and sits in his lap. 

“I talked to mum and dad about it, and we decided that Bob was always sort of your dog. So we figured you could take him along. Unless your landlord doesn’t allow dogs, which... would kind of make this awkward.”

Harry laughs, leaning over to scratch behind Bob’s ears, “It’s allowed. Thanks, Jen. I’ll make sure to call when we get there.”

She throws them both a peace sign and Louis rolls the window back up. 

“I never asked, but,” He sniffles, so happy that his heart might just burst into a million colors, like fireworks, “What did she whisper in your ear, before we left my house?”

Louis smiles at the memory, “She said to take care of you, and make sure you don’t do anything stupid-”

“-Your mom pulled me aside and told me the same thing before we left your house-”

“-And that you used to piss in your bed until you were sixteen.”

Harry’s mouth drops open, leaning past Louis to look out of his window and incredulously at Jenna, who grins back like a Cheshire cat, knowing exactly why Harry's looking at her like that.

“She seriously said that?”

“Yup,” Louis runs his hands up and down Bob’s fur, wiggling his fingers against his stomach, observing the way he taps his foot when he scratches there. He brings his voice up an octave, baby-talking to Harry, “But at least you won’t be scared anymore, because you’ve got me. You won’t have to scare away the monsters with your pee.”

Harry puts his hands on the wheel and deadpans at Louis. Louis raises Bob’s paw and waves at Harry with it. “Speaking of whispering, what did Mick say to you on stage before we left? I never got to ask, and it’s sort of been bugging me this entire time.”

Harry smiles to himself, staring down the steering wheel, putting the key in the ignition, “He- Um. Said I did good, and that he ‘hoped you and your boyfriend had a good time at the concert,’ and that we were a ‘cute couple.’”

Louis laughs, “Wait, but. We weren’t even dating at that time. Did you correct him?”

Harry clears his throat, struggling to disguise his smile, “No. I didn’t.”

“Aw, Harry,” Louis coos, rubbing a hand up and down Harry’s arm, “I guess everyone knew before we did, huh? The boys, Jenna, and now Mick. Crazy, innit?”

Harry agrees, “We’re obliviously obvious.”

They both wave out of their windows as Harry pulls off of the curb, watching as everyone stands together to wave back at the boys. 

“Is this the end of the movie?”

Harry looks at him, lips pursed and one eyebrow raised, “What?”

“The end of our movie. Like at the end of Grease, when Sandy and Danny start flying in their car at the end of We Go Together. Is this how we end ours? With a shot of the moving truck turning around the corner?”

Harry puts an arm behind Louis’ seat as they stop at a red light, the truck coming to a stop. Louis grips onto Bob as the car stops, so he doesn’t end up hitting the dashboard, damn inertia. 

“I suppose it is. But there’s always a sequel, right?”

“The sequel is always worse,” Louis pouts, and Bob licks his lip. He pulls back and wrinkles his nose, wiping his lip.

“Our sequel won’t.”

Louis reaches out and grabs Harry’s hand, pulling it over the center console, running his thumb over the ridges of his hands, closes his eyes, and thank God Louis doesn’t have to pretend this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully you enjoyed it :).
> 
> And you better believe I'm going to plug in some self-promo, so follow me on twitter: @lithelouie.  
> (You don't have to, of course. Feel free to ignore my blatant attention-seeking).


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